


Ash Land

by beta_omega



Series: Head Is Not My Home [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, NaNoWriMo, Slow Build, alpha pack, shitty alpha derek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beta_omega/pseuds/beta_omega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a young woman realizes her family's kept her lycanthropy under wraps all her life, coming into her power has disastrous consequences for the local Alpha, especially when a rival Alpha decides to make her head his playground. Forced into delivering a mating bite against both their wishes, she's thrust deeper into the supernatural world her parents tried so hard to avoid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tea Lights

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really crap at writing summaries, but I'll get to changing it later on. This IS going to be updated rather quickly as part of NaNoWriMo (or that's the plan, we'll see if I can follow it with my courseload), so that means it won't be as edited as I would like. Please don't get mad at me for that. Rough drafts all the way.
> 
> Also, this is NOT a stand-alone piece. You'll need to start from the beginning with No Time For Sparks. Thanks.

“Okay, now I totally, completely, unequivocally get why Peter was to against you fighting Ash.”  
“Stiles, do us all a big favor and please. Shut. Up.”  
And, boy, that wasn’t the King of all glares in glare history. Stiles could feel his skin crawling, tugging him away from the conversation, it was that severe.  
To be fair though, Stiles had been quiet about the issue for long enough in his book. So Scott had forced the change, and Aisling’s wolfy instincts took over, maybe just a little more strongly than anyone had expected, least of all Derek, but that had been, what, at least two weeks ago?  
That had to be more than enough time to mull things over and move on, but both parties refused to talk.  
The sheriff, while he enjoyed having as enthusiastic and studious a helper as Aisling was, noticed that she was wearing herself ragged. All the women in the station couldn’t stop dropping off muffins and fruits at his desk with little notes telling him to make sure she ate at some point. All the weight she’d lost from training with Scott had yet to return, and throwing herself into the internship hadn’t been any kinder to her system.  
Every once in a while, Isaac would get a phone call from her, asking him to come over. In his words though, it was usually more of a plea. Taking her pain away had become a sort of routine, and only he seemed to pass the test to get close enough to do it. To Stiles, it sounded like a lot of bull crap, but Isaac never offered up any information that might betray Aisling’s confidence.  
“We talked, but not about anything I could tell you or Derek. She’s better since she shifted, sure, but you and I both know that it’s going to be a while before she can move past what else happened,” Isaac trailed off meaningfully after Stiles finally cornered him in the locker room after lacrosse practice.  
So, yeah, Stiles had kept quiet long enough without forcing the stupid pack to stop ignoring the elephant in the room already.  
“Not this time, Derek,” Stiles argued back.  
Erica perked up from her spot stretched out across Boyd’s lap on the rug.  
“You pair bonded with her, get over it.”  
“Wolves mate for life, Stiles. Wait until you’re saddled with some hunter’s daughter and then tell me how easy it is to get over it.”  
“Dude, I’m human. Hunter’s daughters don’t mean anything to me, no offense, Scott, buddy.”  
“None taken,” Scott mumbled from the couch behind Erica and Boyd. He waved away Stiles’ concern lazily.  
“I thought this was a good thing. A pair of mated Alphas makes for a stronger pack, right? I thought that was how things worked. Maybe we could finally call ourselves a real pack instead of just being a ragtag team of kids. I actually like Aisling.”  
“Easy enough for you to say. Must be nice to think of Derek and Aisling as your new surrogate parents, but you at least you know Aisling. The most me and Boyd have is that she’s related to the Argents and she’s a ticking time bomb even after all,” Erica argued. Her voice rose the longer she spoke and she became increasingly agitated.  
“Well maybe you would know her better if you actually considered yourself a part of the pack enough to come run with us every weekend.”  
“Sorry I’m not sorry for having a life outside of the supernatural, Isaac. We can’t all be like you and Stiles.”  
“I will have you know that I resent that,” Stiles threw in his two cents.  
“I told you it would have been much easier to just kill her and be done with it. From all I’ve heard about the Argents, death is favorable to the bite. We would have done them a favor.”  
“Aisling isn’t an Argent. How many times do I have to say it? She calls Chris Argent her Uncle, but he’s like once removed or something? I don’t know the nuances, but Gerard Argent had a sister Gertrude who had a daughter named Candice who then had a daughter named Aisling. She’s not a real Argent.”  
“That’s all great and wonderful how you think you’re drawing a line of morality there, but they’re all the same. You saw how they treated her after she got the bite. You know Allison’s mom killed herself because she didn’t want to turn. They see our gift as a taint. We all heard her. She would rather have died in that fire. She’s no better than them.”  
Stiles pursed his lips and drummed his fingers against his thighs. Nothing was going how he’d imagined. This was obviously not going to be as easy as he’d hoped.  
“You know what, I’m done. I’m going to the Argents. If no one here wants to talk about this, fine. Maybe one of them will.”  
He swiped his jacket from the floor along with his discarded backpack and jogged across the street to his car. When he sat up again after making sure everything was turned on and operating properly, he nearly had a heart attack.  
Isaac had followed him out and looked just as terrified. Serves him right.  
Jerkily the window rolled down far enough that Stiles human ears could hear the wolf.  
“Mind if I go with you? If you plan on bringing up the shift, you’re going to need someone that can take away pain.”  
“Hers?” Stiles asked once he got started on the drive out.  
“No, yours, actually. She might not like what’s happening to her, but she’s not taking it lying down either. She punched Peter in the face last Friday when he tried to apologize for going inside her head. She broke it and knocked him out so he couldn’t even heal it immediately.”  
If the wolf heard the nervous swallow, he was kind enough not to mention it. 

* * *

Isaac hadn’t been kidding in the least when he said he was coming along for Stiles benefit. The second the front door swung inwards, instead of being met with a cheery smile from Allison, Stiles was greeted by a solid blow to his solar plexus. Before he could fall to his knees wheezing, Isaac had his arms around his middle and carried him through the doorway and over to the dining room.  
Dazed, Stiles could have sworn heard Aisling apologizing, but he couldn’t be too sure. The sound was muffled over the beating of his heart, but the pain quickly melted away into a warm, dull buzz.  
“Why are you here, Stiles,” Aisling asked briskly as she slid a glass of water across the table, her eyes focused on the drops of condensation rolling down the side more than on Stiles. They were still narrowed like she was trying to force the water to boil with just the power of her mind.  
“Why are you punching people at the door? You have a peephole. Use it once in a while, maybe? Save us innocent folk from unnecessary pain?”  
She cracked a little smile, but it was empty. “Peter and Isaac have been the only ones to visit me lately. And Isaac was just here this morning. I couldn’t help but assume the worst.”  
“Next time, go for giving your guest the benefit of the doubt. Just a suggestion, no need to feel obligated to follow through. Anyway, just wondering how you’ve been doing, all things considered.”  
“All things considered, I’m alive, but I’m not sure how I’d classify my feelings regarding that fact.”  
“Does that meant you’re ready to talk about the implications? Because if I have to go through one more week of not-talking between you and the pack, I’m going to die. Seriously, I will. You are literally driving me up a wall.”  
“That all depends. What do you want to talk about? The fact that I basically offered myself to him or the fact that he actually accepted it? Because I can’t quite get my head around either option.”  
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about how you felt, in general. Deaton’s also getting tired of you guys, but at least he’ll talk to me. Turns out pair bonding usually takes more than a little bite, but if it’s something that’s been building over time, the bond might have been initiated a long time ago and the bite just sealed the deal. The key, according to him, is if the bite changed your perception of things.”  
“My perception of things? Way to be cryptic.” She scoffed and leaned back on the two rear legs of her chair.  
“Don’t kill the messenger, please. Anyway, as I was saying, before you rudely interrupted, the pair bonding bite might change you. Like, do you feel significantly stronger, more aware of the earth or your surroundings, more general alive-ness-type feelings?”  
“I just fully shifted for the first time two weeks ago. Obviously I feel different, but how am I supposed to know if it’s because of the bite or just normal werewolf stuff?”  
“You need to see Derek.”  
Stiles said it so plainly that he really should have seen it coming. Before he knew it, his eyes were on fire. Aisling had just chucked the barely touched glass of water into his face, and it was so cold he could feel the tears freezing. Not literally, but it might as well have been.  
Isaac just laughed beside him, rocking back and forth in his seat. Stiles eyed him moodily. Just one nudge and he’d go down like a house of cards. And they were supposed to be on the same side here. Operation Convince-Aisling-to-come-back. A two-man team.  
“Not going to happen. What if did work and I’m compelled to do some weird shit because of stupid werewolf instincts? I like being human, okay? I like being in control of my actions.”  
“Fine, fine, you don’t have to see him yet, but eventually it has to happen, you know that.”  
“If it would help, I’d be more than happy to go with you, Ash. Act as a buffer or something.” Isaac offered.  
She just picked at her nails, sharper now than they were before though definitely still human. Maybe 85% human, 15% wolf. Her voice lowered to a normal inside volume though it still shook. “No, you don’t have to do that. I just need more time to figure things out, relearn control.”  
“You should hurry though. Erica and Boyd are still having trouble with the idea that you might be pack. Boyd’s still arguing that you should be killed so we could just brush all this under a rug. Erica, well, her I don’t really understand, but she doesn’t like that you’re an outsider and you coming in to the pack would automatically put you into the Alpha position with Derek. If you don’t make a decision soon, we could lose them both.”  
Stiles watched Aisling carefully even though he just wanted to pat Isaac on the back and invite him to play video games. He hadn’t even thought about that possibility. The Beta had already lost his family, and the pack was all he had left. How Stiles had forgotten how much it meant to the guy was just a clue into how thin his efforts had been stretched.  
Her eyes, a dull brown in her current state of malnutrition, lowered to the table’s surface. When she took a breath, her ribcage stretched the skin of her chest and outlined the cords of her neck more prominently.  
“I just need another week. That’s it, and then I’ll see Derek. Coffee shop, the one where I used to meet Peter. Not any sooner, all right?”  
When Aisling led them to the door, Stiles expected Isaac to be right behind him, but the wolf shifted his weight one foot from the other beside her.  
Stiles knew that look. Obviously wanted some alone time.  
“I’ll just be in the car,” he said, but the way Isaac’s eyes hadn’t left Aisling, it was all a waste of breath.  
“Are you sure you’re all right, Ash?”  
She shook her head, more focused on her nail polish, which was in dire need of a touch up, than responding immediately. “I lied before.”  
“I know.”  
One corner of her lips rose. Her eyes fell to his shuffling converse-clad feet. “I know you knew. But I do feel different, Isaac, and I wish I wasn’t so affected by this, by Derek. I can count the times I’ve met him on one hand. One.”  
His hands enveloped hers with warmth, filling her with the euphoria of having her pain removed. The ache in her bones had been a constant reminder of that night in the clearing.  
“Whatever happens, you’re not just a mate to him. You’re still a wolf, and you can break the bond whenever you want.”  
Weakly she whispered into the shrinking space between them, “I don’t even know if I want to.”  
He hugged her so fiercely the emotions bled between them into such a mess that it might have given her a headache if he hadn’t been such an emotional rock for her. When they parted, her head felt clearer though her questions remained unanswered for the most part.  
“Oh, before I forget, did you ever end up calling Stiles before … you know?”  
“Yeah, Peter didn’t say anything?” her brows furrowed. That night hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience either, and Peter had made sure everyone knew what went down when she attacked Isaac in the living room.  
“Should he have?”  
She paused and stepped back from the doorway so she could look past Isaac into the front seat of the Jeep at the top of the driveway.  
“No, no, if he hasn’t said anything yet, it must not have been that important.”  
“Okay,” Isaac dragged out the word suspiciously but dropped the matter. “I’ll see you soon, I hope.”  
“Yeah, me too.”


	2. Possess Me

What was supposed to be a peaceful gap year of redefining herself had snowballed into a monstrous mess of the supernatural.

Apparently, it wasn’t even good enough to _just_ be a werewolf. She had to be a werewolf with a penchant for losing her head.

On the bright side, she wasn’t a teen werewolf because, God, she spent enough time with Scott and Stiles already without having to be in their classes too.

So, naturally, when she got the call from Coach Finstock, she hadn’t expected to hear that she’d been offered a job. She couldn’t even remember applying for a job in the first place.

“Hey, hey, is this Ayes- , Eyes-, Izz-,” the voice shouted an incoherent mess of syllables all sounding like vague stabs at pronouncing her first name.

Before her eardrums could burst due to a particularly violent frustrated attempt, she cut in to save him from the effort.

“It’s Aisling, _ash_ like when you smoke a cigarette and _linn._ You don’t pronounce the ‘g.’”

“What the hell kind of name is that anyway? Not as bad as Stilinski, but you’re not far behind.”

“Mother had a thing for the Irish, but I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Name’s Finstock, I coach lacrosse for Beacon Hills, and some idiot parent made the inane suggestion that I might need some assistance, that it might cut down on my swearing on the field.”

“I’m sorry. Wait, this isn’t a prank, is it? I swear, if Stiles put you up to this-,” she started to say before he decided to cut in this time.

“Stiles? You talking about Stilinski? Nicknames kids give themselves these days, but he didn’t put me up to anything. You were the only applicant, and the principal is breathing down the back of my neck to get an assistant coach before the start of the season.”

“And I’m it?” She laughed before she could stifle the sound. This was definitely all Stiles’ doing.

For days now she’d managed to avoid the pack, including its human members, all except for Isaac. He was the only one she could stand being in a room with, but even he’d been getting on her nerves lately. Isaac caught what she’d let slip about Peter and refused to let it go. If Peter hadn’t thought it necessary to inform the pack, she wasn’t going to willingly let that hell rain down on her. It was bad enough just to know that someone else had gotten into her head before without bringing it up to other people. She didn’t need them to make an attempt to get inside themselves, like Peter had.

Her arms flexed at the memory of it.

Just like that Aisling found herself with a job. Stiles might have been able to force her into meeting the pack again, but at least she was going to get paid for doing it.

* * *

After going full-Wolf, partial transformations were actually things Aisling could look forward to now. At the end of every day, she pushed herself a little farther until she could hold her full wolf form without running into the woods. Isaac said it was just the pull of the pack acting on her. The wolf inside wanted desperately to run with its own, and now that she’d done the unthinkable, it needed to run with them.

Honestly, that whole night in the clearing was little more than a blur in her mind. She couldn’t even blame it on the fog of having someone inside her head, at least not for all of it.

Only vaguely could she recall Peter’s presence in her mind.

He’d been screaming at her to listen to him, to fight it, to think of the pack. Only at that point, she hadn’t been able to call the little band of friends her pack, let alone _a_ pack to begin with.

The scent of wolfsbane clung to her hair for days afterwards, and her bouts of vomiting mashed together into a permanent stay in the bathroom.

There was a white hot flash of energy that washed over her entire body when she forced her way past the barrier. For only a moment, she saw what Peter had, blood red eyes filled with the deepest resentment, and then it took her over completely.

Everything after that had been awash with scarlet and crimson hues. She never felt the trees groaning against her weight as she slammed into them nor the sting of the bullets peppering her sides. Her body moved on its own, entirely without her input, and with the amount of blood dripping from her flesh, that was likely for the best.

All she could remember was the chase, then nothing.

Aisling’s vision was only returned to normal after _it_ happened.

The entire pack had gathered around her in some secluded part of the forest. Everyone was just looking at her, some like she’d just committed the ultimate sin, and others (actually, only Stiles) like she’d just made his day.

Young pines had all been broken and twisted underneath her body.

And another’s.

Twisting her head around to see, she could only make out a large outline against the coming dawn. When she allowed her sense of smell what her eyes could not, she recoiled immediately. It was Derek Hale and he had a big fat mating bite on the back of his shoulder, just to the right of his triskelion. She didn’t even know how she’d managed to bite him; her jaw hurt just imagining the stretch.

Chris and Allison pulled her away from the wolves immediately. They never slowed the car in the slightest until they pulled into the driveway and sat her down in the living room with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.

“Are we just going to sit around or are you going to explain to me what possessed you to bite Derek?” Chris asked abruptly.

The sound of his voice startled her, but not as much as his word choice. That in itself made her dig her nails into the ceramic; lengthening to sharp points, they raked across the smooth surface.

He didn’t need to be a werewolf to hit the nail right on the head.

“I didn’t do it,” she muttered, her eyes focused on the shrinking white blobs.

“I think Derek might disagree with you on that,” Allison commented.

Aisling could have glared at her if she’d had the energy. “No, _I_ didn’t do it. I don’t remember it.”

“Peter and Derek both warned you that the transformation could overwhelm you. Memory loss was to be expected.”

“Not like this. I didn’t bite him, it wasn’t me.”

“What, like you were possessed, like _actually_ possessed? Everything we know about werewolves says that the wolf part of them can become strong enough to feel like a possession, but that’s totally normal. You just have to accept that some part of you wanted to bite him.”

“Allison, it was more than a bite, or Isaac wouldn’t have reacted the way he had.” After moment’s pause, he explained. “She gave him a mating bite. They’re starting a courtship process, and not one I can condone.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not one I condone either!” Aisling growled, slamming the mug down onto the coffee table so hard the liquid sloshed out and spilled several marshmallow pieces onto the carpet below. Fine, let them pick out the gooey mess. She wasn’t going to.

“Aisling, mind control is impossible. Besides, the wolf mind during a full moon is so scattered and so intense that it couldn’t happen. An outsider couldn’t get a firm enough grasp to control you. There would be too many stimulants, too many distractions to force your body to do something specific. Just get some rest and we’ll talk about this again later. Maybe when you can admit to what you’ve done.”

“I was _possessed_! Why can’t you just admit that it’s possible?!”

This was all going tits up to be honest. If her uncle could believe that Peter actually came back from the dead, it should have been a no-brainer to accept that mind control was possible too. Of course, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Instead, he resorted to the default notion that Aisling actually wanted to be mated to Derek. The power of an Alpha would have been a powerful drug to a lone Omega.

Which was completely archaic.

Looking back, it was comforting to know that Peter hadn’t actually been in the group surrounding her when she regained control over herself. She could smell him, but he kept his distance several paces beyond the others. For once, he didn’t look smug or all-knowing. Instead he appeared intensely disturbed. The next time he approached her, he tried to broach the subject of what he’d seen, both before and during the night in the clearing.

Aisling hadn’t wanted to talk about it then, not when she still felt like someone was toying with her thoughts, but he was the only one who knew about the state of her mind, the only one she’d allowed inside even against her better judgment. With the way Chris and Allison were walking on eggshells around her after her outburst, she had assumed it would be for the best if she kept it to herself what really happened.

Isaac called her a few days ago. He wanted to see how she was doing, if she still needed him to take some of her pain, all good things, but he also had a message to deliver.

It was common knowledge that Aisling avoided all calls from Peter. She’d read or listen to messages left on other peoples’ phones, but never her own. Of course Isaac would act as his conduit as a last resort.

“He’s being moodier than normal, even after he came back from the dead, Ash. It’s something to do with you, and he won’t tell anyone else about it, not even Derek, which is not helping things on our end either, you know. Packs don’t keep secrets from each other, Ash.”

“I’m sorry, Isaac, but I’m not pack. That’s the end of it.”

“Well, after what you did, you’re going to be.”

I _didn’t do it_ , she almost said, but she bit her tongue and kept quiet.

“If you want to talk to him, put something blue on your windowsill. He says it’s important.”

“Well, he’s _not_ coming inside my bedroom. He’s like, what, forty? If Allison sees him, I will never hear the end of it.”

“He says you’re at greater risk leaving your home. You know, trying to relay messages when I have no idea what’s actually going on is pretty stressful. This is all getting way too vague for me.”

“I know, Isaac, and I am sorry, but the less you know right now, the better.”

Pudgekins, the cuddly bunny, found himself by the window a week later. The thin sliver of moonlight managed to the catch on the curve of the satin bow around his neck before a large shadow covered the stuffed toy and the opening window caused it to fall out onto the roof.

The next moment found it sailing through the air until it collided, gently thankfully, with the back of Aisling’s head.

“Fuck you, too,” she grumbled as she spun around in her chair to face him.

Dark circles ringed her eyes and a dark smudge ran from the side of her nose to her chin, matching the blue ink marks on the outside edge of her right hand.

“Essay for class?” the figure in the window asked smoothly before stepping down lightly into the room.

“I’m not a student, genius. Filling out some paperwork for my new job.”

“Congratulations. Stiles has been regaling us all week about his grand plan to bring you back into the fold.”

When he began to recline across her bedspread, she chucked the fallen rabbit at his face and pointed a finger at the floor, refusing to budge until he acquiesced.

“Fine, the bed is off-limits then.”

She held her glare but lowered her hand back to her lap.

He coughed to find his voice again.

“You should know that I’ve told no one about any of this.”

“Good.”

“But there is one exception.”

Her lips pursed, Aisling regarded him suspiciously, allowing her nails to lengthen into claws.

“The night in the clearing, I had to tell Derek what was happening. All he knows is that you weren’t in control, but that doesn’t change a thing. You still initiated a courtship with him, and unless we can figure out how to block your mind, the Alpha responsible is going to make sure it’s completed.”

“It’s an Alpha? How’d you come to that conclusion?”

Peter ran a hand down his face and stretched his arm out across the bedspread. “There are only two reasons why your vision would shift to red; one, because you developed a bloodlust, which is temporary and never that vivid, or two, because you were looking through an Alpha’s eyes.”

“So why are you here? What was so important that you had to enlist Isaac’s help?”

“I know who he is. It’s not someone you know, but it’s an old family friend of mine. That’s why I couldn’t have you leave. Just being able to get into your head proves how much stronger he’s gotten since I last saw him, and I know for a fact that he’s not even within the city limits.”

“You’re not going to give me a name, are you?” Aisling spun back around to shuffle her papers into a neat stack, clipping them together, and setting them on top of her laptop’s keyboard before shutting that too.

“His name is Deucalion, and he calls himself the Alpha of Alphas. He made you leave a message once: _The pack divides, the pack dies_. Whatever he’s planning to use you for, it’s not going to be good.”

“So then what do we do? I can’t stay in here all the time. Stiles just got me a job with his stupid lacrosse coach. I start work next week.”

“Derek hasn’t brought it up lately so I don’t think there’s a reason to tell anyone else yet, but you are going to need to let me into your head more often. You know, so you can practice feeling my presence and rejecting it. Maybe build up enough mental toughness to force Deucalion out the next time he tries to turn you into a puppet.”

“You know just how to make the perfect weekend plans,” Aisling groaned and slid her body down from her chair onto the floor. “You’re so lucky my family doesn’t believe I was possessed or I’d be telling you too fuck off right now.”

“Well, the Argents do have a habit of ignoring the truth,” Peter mumbled glumly.

Crawling forward, she gets close enough to scoop Pudgekins off the floor and rub its fur vigorously into Peter’s face, one corner of her lip rising at the thought of their shared past. “Shut up. I was a victim too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, these are going to be so short, and definitely pretty crap and I apologize for that, but I'm going for the 50,000 count and daily updates.


	3. Field Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW I know jack shit about lacrosse so I apologize for the b.s. coming.

“Jasper! Jesus, what the hell was that? I thought you said you could coach! Even Greenberg knows better than you,” Finstock hollered from the field’s edge.

The megaphone lay by the wayside, totally ignored, and Aisling found herself thanking all the gods that it was so. Her ears didn’t need the torture the extra volume would provide.

She jogged over, not too fast because she wanted to delay the agony, but not too slow either because it could only get worse, and braced herself for the barrage of insults headed her way.

“You do realize, right, that you’re supposed to be training these kids, not killing them. That’s the fifth kid today that you’ve benched.”

“You said to put 100% into it.”

“Yeah, well, that was before I knew your 100% meant my best players could lose their masculinity,” Finstock countered before grabbing her shoulders and roughly forcing her to turn around and face the field with the remaining players all geared up and nervously shuffling farther away. “Why don’t you just try to protect that goal for now? Have them get a few shots on you.”

Aisling huffed and gave in.

What a mistake that was. The first few boys decided they wouldn’t even attempt to make a goal. Instead they went for revenge, snapping the balls at her joints or her face. The majority of them didn’t even have enough force in them to hurt, but it was clear that was their intention; they put all their weight into it. Werewolf strength just had a way of increasing her tolerance for pain.

After a surprisingly strong shot from Stiles, who was grinning stupidly the whole time (both Scott and Isaac were in line behind him to take shots), Aisling snapped.

She flung her stick to the ground and marched up to the boys, blowing shrilly on her little whistle.

“Okay, I’ll admit that I was a little hard on you before, but that is no excuse to _completely forego actually trying to score a goal on me_! Just for that, you’re going to run for me. Just one lap.”

A couple of bigger guys towards the back of the line scoffed.

“One lap, and I’ll give you a thirty second head start, but if I still finish first, _100_ _burpees_. Now run.”

Stiles actually whined audibly, and Aisling didn’t even need her werewolf hearing to catch it. Burpees had been a cross country staple back in her time on the team, and even at the top of her game, they’d been absolute murder. It was cruel, but she was just doing her job after Finstock told her to cut them some slack. It wasn’t her fault if they thought they could get their revenge on her.

Trying to hold back the wolf proved to be more difficult than she expected though. After passing the majority of the team, only Isaac, Scott, and Stiles were left pushing each other farther and farther ahead of her.

The fact that Stiles managed to keep up for so long came as a surprise, but running with wolves for as long as he had obviously had its benefits and burpees were a prime incentive to make it around the field first.

Just running alongside the two wolves though brought back memories from before the world went to shit, when she was still human.

Between breaths she could feel the rush of the wind in her hair as a child. She could smell the pine trees and the wildflowers. She could hear the howls and yips of the wolf pups all around her. Throwing her body into the lush fields, she rolled around with them, burying her face in their soft fur, and wrestled against them as if her meager human strength could hold a candle against their own.

But she wasn’t pack and she never would be again.

It was only because she needed to keep up someone’s self-esteem that she allowed the wolves and Stiles to finish first. That didn’t excuse them from the burpees though. Either everyone won or no one did.

“Jasper, I swear if you break my boys, I will have you out on your ass so fast!” Finstock hollered at her, spittle flying dangerously close to her eyes.

“They’ll break themselves if they’re too slow to get out of the way, and from the looks of it, they have the same endurance as hamsters. And that, is that the Greenberg kid?” She pointed to the straggler at the end of the line. “I don’t even know if I could call that running. Can I give him an extra fifty?”

Finstock paused and actually crossed his arms to mull it over.

“You’ll thank me later,” Aisling grunted before stalking off towards the team.

She didn’t even bother looking when she heard a hyena laugh behind him.

* * *

Stiles could kill her. Just strangle her and be done with it. He couldn’t remember the last time he could still feel his legs. Just going up the stairs to his bedroom had felt like a losing battle until his dad finally pitied him enough to lend a hand.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was just supposed to be a part-time assistant coach, run a few practice games with them, train them up, and reincorporate herself into the pack again since she had a tendency to disappear whenever he showed up at the station. Even the sheriff seemed to notice it. This had been a second attempt to get her to show her face again. It was supposed to go smoothly without any casualties and already Stiles felt like throwing in the towel and getting her fired before he had to call in sick just to get a rest day.

So far, she’d still managed to avoid him and Scott, but even Isaac wasn’t getting any results and the puppy got to drive home with her twice a week. Even as Allison’s boyfriend, Scott was relegated to biking to the Argent house.

“You still sore?” Scott laughed over the phone.

“Dude, not all of us can be werewolves, okay?” Stiles rolled across his bed to grab a book on arcane werewolf lore off his desk. “But why isn’t this working? She’s supposed to be having a civil conversation with us, not trying to kill us on a daily basis.”

“This is Allison’s cousin we’re talking about. Don’t tell me you actually expected her to listen.”

Stiles stopped flipping through the pages and shook his head before translating the gesture into words. “No, no, I guess not, but still it would’ve been nice. But I didn’t call you because I missed the sound of your voice, dorkwad. I remembered something from that night, when you did you know what.”

“You’re going to turn into Peter if you keep talking like that,” Scott snidely pointed out. Stiles could just hear the stupid grin on his face.

“Shut up, dude. My dad still doesn’t know about Aisling, and with the way things are going, I’d like to keep it that way. Now just listen to me, okay? Peter said something on the radio when we were trying to draw her away from Lydia. Red eyes are supposed to indicate status as an Alpha, but just one eye? Peter thought it was an Alpha, and he said something else.”

“Like what?”

“I think it might be a family friend of the Hales. He said whoever it was had left a message and then he just shut off his end of the comm. Whatever’s happening here, it just got a thousand times worse. Any more shit happens, even Harry Potter will admit he’s never had it this bad.”

“I can’t believe you just related this to Harry Potter. Werewolves and mind control, our lives just keep getting better and better.”

“So, what do we do? Obviously there’s more going on here than Peter or Derek is telling us.”

“We can’t just bring it up ourselves,” Scott argued.

Stiles tossed his book back onto the desk, wincing when it slid off the other end and tumbled onto the carpet.

“She’s being controlled by an Alpha, Scott. We can’t just wait for Derek to admit that shit just hit the fan. What if it decides to kill us in our sleep?”

“I really doubt that’s going to happen. Derek and Peter have been trading shifts watching Allison’s house. She’s not going to be able to get out without one of them noticing.”

Immediately he straightened up in his bed and pressed he phone closer to his ear to make sure he was hearing him right. “What? Since when? That is so creepy, even for Peter.”

“I’ve caught their scent on the lawn more often lately when I visit Allison after school. Last night I saw Derek’s car parked a block away. Aisling’s perfectly fine.”

“Jesus, I don’t know how I feel about this. I don’t even want to know Aisling feels about this. She has to know, right? All those wolfy senses?”

“If she does, she hasn’t called them out on it yet? Though according to Peter, initiating a bond does things to a person. It’s probably a good thing that Derek hangs around.”

“You’ve been talking to Peter too?” Stiles groaned and slumped back onto the bedspread. “Why doesn’t anyone ever share this information with me? I’m supposed to be the info dump, the guy with all the knowledge, keep me up-to-date, dude.”

“Just talk to Isaac before Aisling can get to him after practice. He’s the only one _keeping up-to-date_ with everyone without getting punched in the stomach.”

“That was _one_ time.” He rubbed his eyes, glancing over at the glowing green numbers hovering disembodied in the darkness, in the vague direction of his desk. He wasn’t going to be awake until third period at this rate. “I’ll let you go, but we are going to see Derek after school tomorrow.”

At once Scott refused.

That was to be expected though. Ever since the night in the clearing, both of them hadn’t heard the end of Derek’s frustration for the epic failure that was that night. It had been Stiles’ job to coordinate everyone in the effort to keep Aisling contained, and it had been Scott’s responsibility to keep her inside whatever the cost. He was supposed to be the front line defense and that fell apart like wet toilet paper.

Stiles winced at the memory of Derek tearing Scott a new one. Something about the mating bite being all Scott’s fault. If he hadn’t chickened out and hesitated, maybe Aisling would have lost consciousness before she managed to get her teeth into Derek’s shoulder.

And just because it was worth mentioning now, it was the worst decision in the world to remind the Alpha that he’d reciprocated, without the benefit of blaming mind control.

Scott couldn’t even explain how he ended up sprawled across the leaf-covered gravel in front of the burned Hale House, which was still not Derek’s property but was still used as a safe haven when Derek felt particularly stressed. Stiles could understand the reason behind it, but the drive was murder on his gas tank. Ever since the bite though, he seemed more determined than ever to rip it down to the foundation with his bare hands.

Stiles saw the appeal in that too. Every time he stepped through the charred doorway, he had to remind himself that Aisling, a little human girl, had been trapped inside when the flames licked at the walls while Derek, who blamed himself for it, had been safely tucked away at school. He as good as started the fire, and his soon-to-be mate almost died because of him. Before all this, the place had just been a memory of a happy childhood. Now it was just a reminder of all the grief he’d caused.

Approaching Derek in that state of mind had been a mistake, and Stiles regretted making it, but it had been days since then. There were more pressing matters now that couldn’t just be set aside in favor of wallowing in the past and all the self-pity that came with it.

No one blamed Derek for the fire anymore. Everyone blamed Kate, even her own brother.

Derek just needed to see that and move on to their new problem: what to do about Aisling.

Like that was going to come easily. It would be a miracle just to find him back in the train depot for once.

* * *

Stiles didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He didn’t even know if this was better or worse than his expectations.

While Derek was actually physically at the train depot, Stiles couldn’t be sure if the wolf’s mind was there too. No matter how he tried to get a rise out of him, the alpha just moved around the flat into the kitchen and fussed with pots and pans that Stiles hadn’t known were there before. He would open cabinets and drawers as if expecting utensils, dishware, or _food_ to materialize out of nowhere.  He did everything he could possibly think of to distract himself from the annoying presence that Stiles no doubt was to him in that moment.

Scott had retreated into the living room with Isaac and Peter from the get-go, trying not to laugh at Derek’s constant spurning of the teenage boy. His mood was not shared, however, by the resident wolves or by the two wolves he hadn’t even noticed getting cozy on the loveseat by the window.

“You know what’s really sad? Stiles isn’t even the only one getting the cold shoulder. Derek’s been ignoring all of us,” Isaac whined, resting his chin on the back of the couch so he could continue watching his alpha.

“How long has he been like that?”

“He only just started coming back here maybe three days ago,” Peter spoke up. His eyes were trained on a spot just to the right of the opening into the kitchen, just near enough to watch the alpha and the human out of his peripherals.

“I told you we should just kill her. Be done with it. Refocus our energy into becoming a stronger pack.”

Scott bristled on Stiles’ behalf at Boyd’s callous suggestion. He’d heard enough of Stiles’ protestations on the matter to have internalized some of his arguments, but Isaac beat him to the punch.

“We can be a stronger pack if you could just accept Aisling as an Alpha too!”

“No way. We’re not deaf. We all know that she was possessed by an Alpha even if Derek insists on ignoring the elephant in the room,” Erica huffed and stood from Boyd’s lap, brushing imagined dust off her thighs. “So, what, are we just going to wait around for the puppet master to attack us again?”

Peter couldn’t have looked closer to his old Alpha self if he tried. His eyes, though blue, burned hotly and his fangs grew so sharp they could’ve bitten through steel when he rose to challenge the younger wolf. “You even _try_ to end this and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Instead of backing down, Erica bared her fangs in return and stormed off towards the bedrooms, hauling Boyd forcefully behind her. “Fuck you, Peter. You picked a great time to finally grow a conscience. I mean, really, killing your own niece was nothing, but a pack member threatening an Argent, and you’re up in arms to protect her. If you guys don’t figure something out soon, we are _not_ sticking around for the fallout.”

Peter held his stance for a good few minutes after the young pair disappeared behind one of the bedroom doors before he finally dropped his body back into the ratty couch. His mood hadn’t improved, and Scott was reluctant to speak.

“Erica’s right though. We all saw what happened, now could you just please actually acknowledge it?”

“I have acknowledged it. I’ve already spoken with Aisling. That matter has been _settled_ ,” Peter declared with a definite note of finality. “What concerns me is my nephew’s refusal to acknowledge his response to the bite.”

Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Stiles obviously managed to annoy Derek out of the kitchen because the Alpha trudged into the living room with an expression that could kill. Stiles meanwhile strode calmly beside him though his face betrayed his murderous intent. His hands twitched at his sides, aching to wrap around a bat just so he could take a swing at the werewolf.

“Don’t even think about it,” Derek hissed through gritted teeth before Scott could even ask what even happened in the kitchen.

“Don’t even bother. He knows what he did, he knows what Aisling did, and he knows who made her do it and why; he just refuses to share the information,” Stiles shouted dramatically flailing his arms.

“Because it doesn’t concern you. It’s a family matter.” Derek flicked his eyes to his uncle beside Scott fleetingly but otherwise kept his eyes trained on the floor.

“Um, yeah, it does because you may not have noticed, but my _dad_ has personally followed Ash’s case files. Who’s to say that one night I’m not going to leave him a hint that point to whoever decided to use her against you? I might just do it too. If you’re not going to do a thing about the obvious possession, maybe he can.”

“I’ll be working with her, Stiles. She won’t be possessed so easily again,” Peter tried to assure him, but it failed to ease his nerves.

“Because having you in her head is any better.”

Peter just raised an eyebrow and threw the kid a scathing look.

“You know, you’re still ignoring one elephant in the room,” Isaac said. “Derek, you returned the bite.”

To his credit, Derek didn’t automatically lash out in a blind rage this time. That fact miffed Stiles, but only a little bit.

“We’re not going to be mates.”

“Then you’re going to dissolve the bond?” Peter asked perfectly innocently, but his eyes had dropped their misery in exchange for the mirth that only brought out the worst in him.

Obviously Derek’s failure to answer immediately only meant one thing to the group before him, and seeing Isaac’s face split by a happy grin was almost too much for him to handle without snapping. Here he was trying desperately to ignore what he’d started by that simple reciprocation, and instead he wound up making a promise to the last person who actually believed he was still a good alpha.

Aisling had never even been overtly kind to him, as if he ever even gave her the chance to be. He could literally count the times they’d met on one hand. But he still bit her back. He accepted the bite and returned the favor.

And she hadn’t even been the one in control of her body when she initiated it. How messed up was that? He’d basically taken advantage of her, but she’d had plenty of time to break the bond herself. He would have felt the change in the energy between them, but so far nothing but the steady beat of their hearts together.

“It’s not my decision to make.”

And that was a copout if Stiles ever heard one. Even Derek knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to just play nice and give you a long(er) chapter. Doing well on the NaNoWriMo front for now at least. Let's hope I can keep it up.


	4. Get in, Loser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really cranking these babies out. Please like it. It didn't want to exist today.

Meeting a friend of Allison’s hadn’t been at the top of Aisling’s to-do list for the day. She was caught between work with Finstock and work with the Sheriff. She didn’t need anything else on her plate. Heaven knows it was already full of werewolf crap no one bothered to warn her about.

She did have to count herself lucky for avoiding Stiles as well as she had for the past few days. He’d been trying so hard lately, it would have been admirable had she not been the focus of his efforts.

The week she’d promised Stiles had passed without a single attempt to reach out to Derek. She shouldn’t have to be the one to be making the first move, and that’s what she told herself whenever she found herself eyeing the phone. Everything that happened that night, from the attacks on everyone who came out to help her, to the bite on Derek’s shoulder, had happened without her consent, hell, without her knowledge. The apologies for that weren’t hers to make, but she knew the dark presence in the back of her mind would never make them.

Obviously that left that responsibility with Derek. Only he hadn’t bothered to extend the olive branch either.

Which was for the best, she thought, leaning her head against the side rail at the top of the bleachers.

All the time in the world, and she hadn’t decided yet how she felt about the bond between them. It felt weak like a butterfly in a strong wind, but every time she caught his scent around Scott or Stiles or Isaac, just whiffs from all the time they spent with the alpha the butterfly had a way of turning into a goddamn eagle. Try as she might to squash the surge of warmth before it could spread to her fingertips, the stupid bird kept coming back.

It had to be deliberate. Derek’s scent hadn’t been that strong around Stiles or Scott until after she bit him. The pack hadn’t had a reason to meet that often before, and Aisling was 90% certain that Stiles didn’t even wait for actual pack meetings to rub his jacket into everything Derek owned. He just liked to see her squirm.

For someone who threatened to leave her at Derek’s place, wherever that was, if she dodged this meeting, Allison sure was biding her time.

She pulled her jacket tighter around her body and buried her nose deeper into the bright red scarf around her neck. Cursing the fact that her car, or rather Allison’s car, was parked on the far side of the parking lot, she had to make do with rubbing her hands together for warmth. Any longer and she might lose a pinky to frostbite.

 “You’re late,” Aisling groaned. She couldn’t even force real heat into her voice she was so cold by the time the two girls finally came up to join her. All she could think about was heading down and into one of the school buildings. “All the boys went home already.”

“And did you talk to any of them besides Isaac today?” Allison asked pointedly.

Aisling could just wipe that smirk of her face, but she settled for a glare and stopped in her tracks for a moment.

Allison’s friend exuded a startling amount of confidence, but in spite of the bright emerald green wool coat wrapped around her top, Aisling held back a whine for how cold the girl’s legs must be just dressed in black tights.

“Lydia Martin,” she introduced herself without needing any prompting.

Aisling shrank back another pace with the force behind the hand _Lydia_ extended towards her. She gripped it awkwardly and dropped it a second later, honey-hued eyes following suit soon after.

“Aisling, I think Isaac mentioned you before, but only in passing,” she added quickly and snapped her eyes back up again to meet Lydia’s though with only faltering surety.

Lydia pursed her lips, hummed, and turned to continue walking again, speaking carelessly over her shoulder. Her voice was at a normal, inside volume, and it wasn’t until Aisling glanced over at her cousin that she understood why.

“She knows,” Allison mouthed before smiling at her friend as though she’d never diverted her attention.

Of course Lydia still picked up on it. Someone with that much confidence and self-important would never have missed it.

“ _As I was saying_ , I’ve had some experience in the field of mind control, not like I know how to do it, but I do know how it feels. You think you’ve been possessed and Allison says it’s impossible, but I think we all know that term is an understatement at this point. Now, get in the car. We’re going shopping.”

Lydia somehow managed to get all of that in a single breath without even pausing to locate the keys in her massive handbag, which was actually a gorgeous shade of brown leather, opening the front door on the passenger side, and sliding the seat forward for someone to crawl into the back. It was an astonishing feat, and Aisling couldn’t bring herself to move.

Allison ended up in the front seat once Aisling made it clear that she was a walking disaster. Lydia just rolled her eyes, tossed a carefully curled lock of strawberry blonde hair, and went through her iPhone looking for the perfect road song while Aisling nursed her bruised pride and her bruised hand in the back seat. Two-door cars were the worst. Stupid sliding chairs. It was 2013, for crying out loud. Their time had come and gone ages ago.

“So, what did it feel like?” Lydia asked, smacking her lips at the rear view mirror before she dug a free hand into her purse for a stick of lip gloss.

“I don’t know,” Aisling fought to get out. “I don’t remember much of it. One minute I was facing Scott, the next I was waking up on Derek’s lap.”

“So…. Nothing? No pain? No creepy chills?”

“Not really?” Aisling winced and shrunk into her seat.

The way Lydia hummed was not encouraging. Nor was the glance she shot Allison at the next stop light.

Aisling’s hands trembled out of synch with the natural vibrations of the car. She tapped out the rhythm to Eye of the Tiger against her thighs before she got sick of the silence.

“What? What was like for you? I don’t even know why you’re supposed to be the expert.”

Lydia just laughed. It might have been mistaken for genuine if not for the clear disdain in her wide eyes.

“Please, Aisling,” she drew out the sound of her name tauntingly as she turned into the driveway of the mall. “Your head isn’t the only one Peter’s gotten into before, but at least when he did it to me, it wasn’t with my consent.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aisling and Allison shouted simultaneously, forcing Lydia to slam on the brakes in the middle of her attempt to park. “You’ve been letting him into your head? Willingly?”

“Ugh, god, how do you even know about that? I don’t even smell him on you.”

“That would be because I shower. I don’t like to smell of dog, and you’re going to have to vacuum once I drop you off.”

Aisling just groaned and glowered at the smirking girl through the window. She waited for Allison to slide her seat forward to let her out, but her cousin refused to budge, preferring to let her stew.

“Allison, please.” Aisling pinched the bridge of her nose and breathed deeply. “Can you please get your friend to lay off my back? I don’t let him in my head because I want to. I don’t have much of a choice.”

“Of course you have a choice. Peter’s not the only member of the pack, but he _is_ the only one who’s willingly killed his own niece. What were you thinking? Were you even thinking at all?”

She stuck out her chin. “Despite my apparent reluctance to be a werewolf in the first place, I don’t actively want to die. He’s the only one who can get into my head without paralyzing me. I would’ve asked Isaac, but he doesn’t know how to do it. Plus, he’s my friend. There are some things I’d rather he not see. I’m sure you’d hide the same from Scott.”

Finally Allison took that as a hint to let her out of the car, and Aisling wasted little time in escaping the metal confines, shutting the door emphatically behind her.

“In case you were still wondering, I actually know because Peter must’ve let it slip where Erica could hear it because I heard her moaning about it to her boyfriend. She does not like you at all, Aisling.”

“We don’t even know each other!”

“You’re going to be mated to her Alpha. Of course she’s going to hate you,” Allison pointed out.

Really. Not helping. At all. Like she needed to be reminded of that fact.

“Also, just to put ourselves back on subject before we actually become Gossip Girls, Peter might be into parricide, but he was half-dead and no longer an Alpha when he controlled me. From what I’ve heard, and believe me, I’ve heard more than I would like and literally none of it first-hand, you’re facing worse odds. I mean, a full, living, breathing, vengeful Alpha,” Lydia trailed off while she led the cousins into the shopping center, heels clicking quickly against the mosaic tiles, “I’d be considering myself lucky if I were Derek.”

“I’d consider myself lucky if I were him too. I don’t even like shopping,” Aisling muttered conspiratorially to the air.

“Shut up. Dad gave me his card,” Allison quipped over her shoulder, skipping like a schoolgirl in circles around the nearest potted palm.

Instantly Aisling’s eyes brightened to a sunny gold. “Forget I said anything.”

Both girls rolled their eyes at the werewolf before giving a long, critical look at her outfit.

Aisling tugged at the hem of the overlarge indigo and violet mohair sweater hanging off her frame and curled her arms around her middle, as if the gesture could protect the sweater fro m the savagery of the fashionistas moments away from mocking her.

“What? Just because I’m a werewolf doesn’t mean I can’t feel the cold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I was really pushing myself to hit 1667 words today. Even though I'm ahead of the word count, its only going to get harder to find time later on. Gotta make the best with what I have now.


	5. Mouse Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aisling had to tip her hat to Stiles for this one, he'd actually managed to corner her this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo! currently ahead of the word count but tomorrow's going to be a tough day to get an update out, but we'll see. at least you've got one tonight.

Mountains of paperwork perched precariously at the edge of the large wooden desk where Aisling had shoved them. All the cases of robbery and burglary and none of them solved or with suspects in mind. Generalizations meant nothing but the safety of the perpetrators of the crime. She was just supposed to reorganize them by date and location, see if there were any patterns to the incidences.

One little gem however could be found amidst the clutter though the nature of it could hardly be considered a gem of human nature. Vandalism at an old factory on the far side of town, but no one had ever been found to be responsible. Instead of your typical street tagging and graffiti, a large spiral had been cut into the corrugated metal siding of the factory doors.

The last time Aisling saw a spiral like that was after she was picked up in the woods. She’d painted an identical one before while under the control of the invisible Alpha.

She fumbled through the rest of the pages of the report, finding nothing more interesting than the lack of any tools used to leave the mark.

“Sheriff, Sheriff Stilinski.” She knocked twice against the glass of the office door.

The blinds rattled open before the door itself followed suit. His eyes were already creased, as if in fear of hearing what she had to say. She nearly turned away from him then, but the papers in her hand held her steady.

“You almost finished sorting through those files?”

“No, no,” she said, shutting her eyes at the thought of _having_ to finish them, “it’s just that I found something. I think it might have something to do with … my own files, you know the ones.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line and let her inside, shutting the blinds once more.

The green faux leather chair was cold against her legs when she sat down even through her jeans. Her hands shook when she nudged the stapled pages across the surface of the desk with a fingertip, her eyes followed it as he raised it up to peruse the words.

“This- this is new,” he had to admit after a heartbeat. The papers rustled against his own work as he returned it to the desk’s cluttered surface, using the back of his hand to make enough space for it. “And you’re sure this was in the boxes I left with you?”

She nodded.

His eyes were shut when he asked her, “Why did you bring this to me?”

“No one was ever found. What if it was me? What if I left that spiral there? It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

She forced herself to stare into the worry in his eyes when they reopened. Just like that she was a child again, being told she had a problem, that she was a problem. Like a dog, her parents were just supposed to lock her up at night, chain her if need be, anything it took to keep her inside.

Sheriff Stilinski had never once treated her like that. He carried her away from the fire and never treated her like just another case. Though she supposed he did the same for everyone he worked with. That would explain the wrinkles and the lines around his eyes. Every case he worked wasn’t just words on a page. He became invested in the people involved until he found the truth, and even then the work never stopped. Being in a small town made it easier to check up on past victims, but just checking up on everyone had to be taxing. He’d made a point of visiting her in the hospital every day as she healed until she was well enough to leave Beacon Hills. She remembered seeing his face through the glass and the thumbs up he would always give her. He never once left her without getting one in return.

If she was responsible for the spiral in the door, she doubted she’d get a thumbs up now.

“What are the dates on there?”

She hadn’t even noticed.

“August 26th, 2005,” he read it off for her. “That’s about a month before you started sleep-walking. I wouldn’t be too worried about this.”

“But it’s a spiral, the marking I left on that bridge. It could’ve been me, and I just walked back home before anyone could find me.”

She brought her hands to her mouth to stifle the whimpers coming out, though it left the tears free to run down her cheeks. God, she was a mess.

“Ash, sweetheart, I need you to calm down.” He raised both his hands. “Look, you were only maybe 13 at the time. You would’ve been too small to make those marks. They reach higher than you could’ve, and there were no ladders on site anywhere. It couldn’t have been you.”

“But what if it’s related to what I did? The person who did that, they could have made me-“

Aisling’s eyes widened at her mistake. He was not supposed to know about any of this. The revelation that she had been both brainwashed and mind-controlled was supposed to be kept strictly within the pack, and for right now, the Sheriff wasn’t a part of it. For safety reasons, according to Stiles.

“Made you do what? Were you being pressured into doing this?”

Well, mind control was a bit like peer pressure, but that was definitely far from the truth.

“Were you lying about sleepwalking?” His voice adopted a more stern that forced her to sit straight in her chair while her head screamed at her to slouch down and make herself as small as possible.

“No! No, I’d never lie about that! I don’t remember any of it, honest! It was a slip of the tongue. I just meant that what if they made me, like what if they influenced me? Maybe I saw the spiral there and my subconscious decided to reproduce it.” She shrugged.

He fixed her with a protracted stare and rubbed the space between his eyebrows with his knuckles. “I don’t know what to say to you, Ash. I don’t think you did that. You wouldn’t have had the strength or the height for it back then. Why don’t you stick around for a while? Forget about the other files for now. I don’t want to sound insensitive, but you aren’t in a state I can send you home in.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled dryly but cracked a small smile anyway. It was all in good fun.

A can of soda slid across the desk towards her. Mello Yello, her favorite.

“I don’t know why I ever considered going home.” She laughed quietly, delighting in the crisp citrus taste and the bubbles tickling her nose with every sip. It helped that the Sheriff smiled too, took a couple years off that lined face.

“I kept those around in the fridge, always had a least one in there, you know, even after your mother took you away.” He shrugged, hoping to be nonchalant, but his eyes had always been too expressive. “I always hoped you would come back, even though I know I couldn’t have done the same, if I’d gone through what you had. I don’t know how I could be persuaded to stay.”

Aisling paused with her drink, clicking her nails rhythmically down the length of the can. She was supposed to say something to that but couldn’t find the words. There wasn’t much to say. The choice had never been hers. She probably wouldn’t have returned on her own terms, and she likely wouldn’t have stayed either if she hadn’t needed help getting her mind back under her sole control. But she couldn’t tell him that, not without revealing the darker side of Beacon Hills.

A knock on the door saved her from having to speak.

But not surprisingly, its usefulness stopped there.

“Hey, dad.”

She didn’t even bother to hold back the frustrated groan.

Aisling had to tip her hat to Stiles for this one, his most elaborate attempt to corner her yet.

That’s what it had to be. He had to have known that file was in there. He had to have known she would pick up on it. He went through his dad’s files all the time. Of course he would have managed to slip something in, right under the Sheriff’s nose. No wonder he’d been confused that she’d found it in the boxes he’d assigned her; he hadn’t been the one to put it there.

Which meant Stiles had been hiding it in secret all this time. Aisling, for one, already started to plot a nighttime attack on the kid. Baseball bat or no, he deserved whatever strikes she could get past him.

“Oh, hey, Aisling, didn’t think you’d still be here. I thought it was family dinner night on Saturdays,” Stiles spoke quickly without the least bit of hesitation or nervousness. He played total obliviousness well.

“It is,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“Well, since you’re going to be late anyhow, why don’t we just talk?”

“How do you know I’m not busy?”

“Nonsense, Ash. You need the break, especially after what you found,” Stiles’ dad interrupted, clearly tired of the back-and-forth that was developing in front of him. With a hand on his son’s shoulder and a hand on the back of Aisling’s neck, he steered both kids out of his office, left another can of soda in the latter’s hands, and shut the door behind him.

While they stood stock still assessing each other, they could hear muffled through the door, “Stiles, take Ash to the diner. She hasn’t eaten anything since she came in this morning.”

Under her breath, she muttered, “Traitor.”

The streetlights flickered behind the fluttering shapes of the moths and other insects as they made their way over to the bright blue, beat up jeep that Stiles boasted was the best car in the world. Underfoot, mirror images of the very same streetlights wavered and shuddered across the surfaces of water puddled from the sprinklers with every step.

“He just worries about you,” Stiles said.

_We all do_ , he left unsaid.

“I bet you feel very pleased with yourself, right now. After all this time, you finally got me all to yourself, and you’re not even my mate,” she quipped cynically, increasing her pace substantially.

He matched it easily with his longer stride, darting forward to open the passenger door for her since she still clutched to both cans of soda like lifelines. “I am, thank you, and since you just brought it up, we might as well talk about the elephant in the parking lot.”

“Can we not right now? I’m tired, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Stiles stuck out his lower jaw and gripped the steering wheel so tightly as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat that his knuckles turned white. The frustration diffused completely after he slammed the door. Immediately he started mumbling apologies to the vehicle.

“Over dinner, Ash. No more running.”

She echoed him halfheartedly, shut her eyes, and let him take her away from the station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short and a bit of a cliffhanger there  
> but it's late and i really should do some actual work before my body decides it's time for bed.


	6. I'll have the ribs, please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while i think since i last posted. it's only because i was too sick to go to class today that this is even getting posted.
> 
> BUT i did see Thor 2 at 11:30p, thursday night and GOOD GOD that was awesome. i was in pain but it was easily worth it.

Stiles’ dad was going to hate him for the amount charged to his account after this. After forty-five minutes Aisling had already devoured more than he could put away himself given twice as much time even if he’d starved himself for two days. He resigned himself to sitting back and picking at a second order of French fries while she cleaned off another half-rack of ribs, which did not result in any semblance of cleanness for herself.

He suspected her sudden hunger came from a dire need to stall rather than actual appetite. In all the time he’d known her, she was like every popular girl he’d met; she drank more water than she ate food, and even then she picked at only half of the plate as if she’d bring shame upon her family for enjoying a good meal. Plus, it probably didn’t help that she’d always been the odd man out, the stranger in the group, the third-wheel, and Stiles knew how that last one felt from a wealth of personal experience. Nerves generally negatively impacted his appetite but only by a max of 2%. He didn’t doubt it was worse for Aisling.

Naturally, seeing her _wolf_ down a two half-racks in less than half an hour startled him. She’d punch him if she could’ve heard that one.

Still, the kitchens could only produce so much food for a given time, and Aisling could only eat so much. Eventually she had to slow enough to digest, and that was when Stiles seized the chance he’d been waiting for.

“I asked you before if your perception changed after Derek returned the bite. You’ve had your time to mull it over, Ash,” he stated solidly, careful not to let his voice waver when he used the familiar nickname.

She bristled but didn’t correct him, chewing her lower lip instead. “You also said before that there might have been a bond before all this, that the bite was just the kicker. Don’t let it go to your head, but you were right.”

Stiles couldn’t fight the smile that broke out across his face. He settled for doing weird things with his arms and hands, trying to cover it, and when he failed, steepled his hands in front of him, elbows on the table like some FBI agent.

“How could you tell? Asking for a purely scholarly interest of course.”

“I could smell him on your guys’ clothes when you would come to practice. Everywhere he’d been, his scent was so strong it was almost like it was pulling me to him,” she admitted after an eye roll. “It’s not like a schoolgirl crush when you get warm, tingly feelings, it’s like someone chained you to an anchor and dropped it into the sea. And it, it, um, it felt … _familiar_ , I guess, like it’s been a long time coming.”

“You wanted to jump him when you were 13?”

“They gave me a steak knife for the ribs, Stiles. Don’t tempt me to use it on your ribs.”

“I might be more scared if you didn’t look like you got your face pushed into a vat of barbeque sauce,” he sniggered with a wry grin.

“Our mothers were close friends. They must have known the truth about each other and decided to get me involved for whatever reason. I ran with him, Stiles, I ran with the whole pack, but it was just us at the end of the day. We’ve always been stronger together. The bite just made it worse.”

“I think the word you’re searching for is better. Getting stronger isn’t a bad thing. I mean, you’ve got an Alpha trying to get into your head. You could use the boost.”

“I’m not entering into a lifelong commitment because one person has decided to use me as a puppet. I’m not that desperate, Stiles.”

“I wasn’t trying to suggest that you were,” he choked out quickly, a hand darting forward to clasp one of hers. “You need to see him, Ash. Talk to him. You’ve stalled long enough.”

“Then we do it tonight. Right now.”

“Right now? You’re a mess.”

“Fine. Twenty minutes. That’s all you can give me before I lose my nerve.”

Stiles did the right thing, getting out of that diner when he did. Aisling had just gone to the women’s room to clean off her face, and the second she passed through the door again, he caught by the crook of her elbow and steered her out into the night.

Just over sixteen and a half minutes.

Aisling fiddled with the seatbelt, picking at the edges with her nails. The click-click of the toughened claws unnerved him though he tried to ignore it. Of all the werewolves he’d had in his jeep, she had to be the most volatile. Scott had never pulled out the claws before and Isaac preferred to mess with the windows, let the air in until he no longer felt suffocated. His foot pressed harder against the accelerator. He needed to reach the depot before she turned her claws to the seat cushions.

The lights in the flat were already on when he slowed the car to a stop before the main entrance. Shadows drifted across the windows, the movement causing the curtains to sway. Every once in a while, a hand would draw them back to let the owner peek out into the night. The angle didn’t allow either of the pair in the vehicle a good look, but knowing they were being watched, only heightened Aisling’s nervousness.

“You didn’t tell them we were coming?”

“While you were in the bathroom, I may have texted Scott. He was supposed to clear out the place,” Stiles groaned, viciously tapping out another message into his phone, the blue light of the screen blinding him to his surroundings.

The back of her hand rubbed against her lips, nails catching on forgotten spots of barbeque sauce. “Are you sure that’s wise? Leaving us together, mates-to-be?”

His eyes widened comically and the snap of his neck when he turned to her was so loud in the midst of their quiet conversation that Aisling was startled his head had managed to stay on.

“You know what? I did not think about that.”

He went to send another text, but she caught him by the wrist with a morose half-smile. “No. Don’t bother. I might as well face the music, with or without an audience.”

This was not going to end well.

He could just feel it. Few things rarely did when one went in with such a glum attitude. It was purely defeatist and not at all like the Aisling he thought he knew. The capture had clearly killed the chase, and he regretted for once pursuing something he shouldn’t have.

Stiles kept his head down and one hand in his pocket, phone on speed dial for his father, while he led Aisling into the depot and the flat upstairs. She followed without so much as the shuffle of her shoes against the concrete. He might have mistaken her for a werecat if he didn’t know any better.

Not a noise escaped her even when she became enveloped in it following the opening of the door to the flat. The momentary hush after the elevator doors slid apart was only fleeting. Then they attacked.

Allison and Lydia went to her first, though that’s not to say Isaac didn’t attempt to beat them. Each girl grabbed an arm for herself, pulling her away from Stiles’ side and over to the window.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Allison inquired. “No one’s forcing you to see him.”

Aisling tried to look over Allison’s shoulder and then through the space between Allison and Lydia, but their heels prevented her from getting a good look.

“He hasn’t come out of his room since Stiles texted that you were coming,” Lydia explained. “You probably should see him though. Isaac’s having a fit.”

Honestly, Aisling expected no less. Isaac depended on the pack more than anyone, and from the moment Aisling arrived, she threw it out of balance. She ruined the one good thing in his life. She owed it to him to make things right again although she would not do so at the cost of her own self-respect. Perverse mind-controlling Alpha or not, Aisling was her own wolf.

The two girls stuck by Aisling’s side while Erica decided to explain the situation to her. Aisling couldn’t have been more grateful for the moral support they provided.

“You shouldn’t be here. You should’ve left town like you did when you were a kid. Just leave us alone. You’re not wanted here,” she spat vehemently.

Boyd hung back a few paces, but his eyes held the same distrust of her.

“I was taken away from here when I was a kid. Believe me, the move hadn’t been voluntary on my part.”

“Well, if you want, I could always force you out myself. I do love a challenge, not like you’ll be much of one though.”

Erica snickered, letting her claws and fangs grow out to full length.

Immediately something shifted in the atmosphere. Both human girls tensed behind Aisling even as the change rippled through her. Honey colored eyes shifted to luminous gold, and her whole posture adjusted to balance her weight on the balls of her feet.

Padding forward, Aisling growled at the blonde, hands twitching at her sides just itching for a fight.

“Puppy wants to come out and play? Then let’s play.”

The more experienced werewolf jumped onto the back of the couch to propel herself into the air. Aisling shuffled backwards, gearing up her own attack. Seconds before Erica could rake her claws down Aisling’s face, she stepped out to the side and using Erica’s own momentum against her, slammed her forcefully into the floor by the back of her neck, allowing the sharp claws to puncture the skin.

All attempts to struggle were forfeited by the dangerous position of Aisling’s claws, but clearly Erica refused to surrender.

“Ash,” Isaac ventured.

Bright eyes rose to meet his, but she said nothing.

“You can let her go now.”

The eyes turned back to watch the quivering flesh under her clawed hand. No one else moved a muscle for some time until a door creaked down the hall. Aisling remained on one knee while footsteps padded closer to her. Her body shivered minutely from the ghostly touch to her shoulder, arching into the touch.

Just like that, she released her hold, dropped all pretense of being a wolf, and stormed off to the room that had just been vacated without ever once acknowledging him.

Through the walls, she strained to hear their conversation. Furious with herself for the instinctual reaction to the taunt, she wiped her eyes raw with the edges of her sleeves.

Of course, Erica would be yelling now, arguing that what had just happened was a prime example for the risk Aisling posed to all of them. Then his voice, pointing out that she’d brought it on herself. Directly challenging the soon-to-be mate of an Alpha could have gone much worse if he hadn’t been in his room when it happened.

Boyd cut in, murmuring something to soothe Erica before they left together, presumably. She couldn’t feel their presence after a time, and never heard them for the rest of the night.

Knowing they’d left brought Aisling little comfort. Her mind had been lost in that moment, an eclipse of judgment, a slip in her failing self-control.

Pressing her sleeve under her eye to dry the tears, she stood to look around in the dim lighting of the sole lamp by the bed.

He mustn’t have been able to sleep either as he’d never struck her as someone habitually unorganized. The bed was made, but not as though he’d just woken and wanted to leave the place looking cared for. It had been done some time ago, and the covers were wrinkled from having been sat on, particularly rumpled at the foot of the bed. Books and newspapers were scattered all over the floor, the majority of them only peeking out from under piles of clothes, all dark tones and hardly worn.

She’d just run into his room without even thinking.

She dropped back onto the bed and curled into a ball, pressing herself close against the wall. Since Erica left with Boyd, she hadn’t paid much attention to what happened to the others in the expansive living room. Some part of her felt guilty for not speaking to Isaac, much more for ignoring his plea to release Erica. The other part dreaded the eventual return of the room’s original inhabitant.

Another touch to her the bare skin of her shoulder, but she did not wake. Her body unfurled as a flower opening for the sunlight, twisting sinuously on the bed sheets to turn toward the stimulus.

The next press of fingertips to the skin came harder, barely restrained from shaking her to consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open but only for a brief moment.

He pulled her up by both shoulders then, forcing her to sit upright with her legs folded underneath her until she could hold herself up by herself.

Aisling grumbled a miserable, “What?” before she realized where she was and that she’d just fallen asleep, completely dropped her guard, in the bedroom of an alpha.

Derek, to his credit, never tried to restrain her. His eyes, dark with exhaustion, held her in place just as well.

Then she noticed he was swaying on his feet. Her hands reached forward to take his but stopped halfway. “You should, um, probably sit down. You look dead on your feet.”

He grunted but acquiesced.

She expected herself to jump or to flinch when he sat himself so close to her their sides were pressed against each other, their combined weight causing the bed to sink between them. Instead she adjusted her arm so she could rest it along his leg, her fingertips tracing circles into the fabric of his jeans stretched over his knee. She felt at peace for once and would have given anything to be allowed to sleep again, rather than talk.

“I feel like I should apologize for attacking your Beta, but I also feel like I shouldn’t lie to someone I’m _courting_ with,” Aisling offered to start. Her voice was empty and her eyes equally vacant.

“She challenged you. You won. It happens in wolf packs.”

“So, we just going to dance around in the elephant in the room or what?”

His chin bumped against the top of her head when he tried to look down at her. Once that failed, he settled for a sigh she felt more than heard.

“Do you want to dissolve the bond?”

Aisling strictly kept her eyes focused on the floor. Beside her, Derek shifted his position, but it only forced them into closer contact.

“I returned the bite, Jasper,” he pointed out, his eyes shut tightly against the memory.

“So?” He received the bite. He had every right to reject her advances.

“I wasn’t the one who was possessed.”

Oh. _Oh_. “Oh.”

His lips thinned into a line though she couldn’t see from her angle.

“Is there such a thing as an extended engagement? Because there should be. That should be a thing.”

“ _An extended engagement_?” he echoed.

“Yes, you know, like putting it off to the side but not totally cutting it out. I don’t want, I mean, I can’t dissolve the bond, not now.” She forced herself to scoot backwards and leaned her head back against the unadorned wall. “I don’t know you, Derek, but I think I would like to. There must be a reason why Isaac wants so badly for us to come out alright.”

He remained seated the way he was, speaking to her over his shoulder, “We’ve already put off the bond for long enough. You can feel the pull. That’s what made you run in here.”

“Well, that, and because I could smell which was Peter’s room,” Aisling was quick to add.

“You trust Isaac implicitly yet you’re still here. That’s the bond’s influence. It will only get stronger the more we put it off.”

“Great, so I’m losing my mind to one killer Alpha and one bond to another alpha. That’s just the news I needed today,” she laughed hollowly. Her eyes slid shut, and she curled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms about her knees. “You are such a Debbie Downer.”

He didn’t say anything, but he did lift his legs and scoot up the length of the bed to press his back against the headboard. Aisling watched him curiously through half-lidded eyes as he removed his shoes, his belt, and thankfully stopped undressing there. He never glanced her way again while he slid his body under the sheets and flicked off the lamp. Aisling didn’t know what to do with herself. She fussed at the hem of her sweater for several minutes, debating the wisdom of leaving now without a ride versus staying with Derek. They’d just decided to maintain the bond, knowing that it would only become harder to ignore it, but he never said anything about it being unbearable for at least another night.

Careful not to disturb him, she copied his method undress, slipping off her boots and the thin, decorative belt around her waist, but only slipped under the topmost blanket. Better to keep that extra layer between them. Even through the clothes and the sheets separating them, she could feel the warmth of the body beside her and the warmth swelling in her own heart. This was where she was meant to be, and this had to be where he wanted her. He did return the bite after all, and he didn’t even need a super psycho wolf to force him into it.

Before she could help herself, she edged forward until she was close enough to curl an arm around him. She smiled against his back, her forehead pressed against the scar she’d left him, tucked away under his shirt.

* * *

On the other side of town, a phone buzzed to life.

**_“THEYRE BTOH ALSEEP IN DEREK;S ROOM.”_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully you'll get another tomorrow. i'm ahead of the projection for NaNoWriMo but it's getting tougher.


	7. In which literally nothing happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Last night, before Stiles brought me to the flat, I was working late on some files for his dad. I found something you should look at. I think it’s best you put the car in park first.”

Pale blue light awakened her before daylight even had the chance to filter in through the gauzy curtains. She must have been exhausted last night to have fallen asleep in spite of the streetlights outside the pack flat. Her phone began to buzz with a renewed ferocity from the floor, having vibrated vigorously enough on top of the desk to fall off sometime earlier. Against her better judgment, she rolled across the bed to answer.

“AISLING, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT TIME IT IS?” The voice at the other end was so loud she chucked the phone away from her before her mind could attach it to a name.

Unfortunately, she also tossed it away before her eyes could realize the door to the adjoining bathroom had just opened and someone else was conveniently just about to step out. Her phone nailed him solidly on his collarbone. His _naked_ collarbone.

“Jasper. Care to explain?”

Just like that she remembered where she was. She’d just spent the night with Derek Hale, the werewolf she was going to be mated to, the werewolf she’d admitted she wanted to be mated to, and most notably the werewolf she’d only spoken to face-to-face less than five times in their recent history.

“Care to put on some clothes?” She gulped a few times to coax the sounds out of her throat before she slipped the rest of the way out of the covers and moved to retrieve her phone from the floor.

He bent down, only hand still clutching the knot of the towel around his waist, and grabbed it before her. Returning to full height, they were much too close for this stage in their relationship. _You were just in bed with him_ , the voice in the back of her head reminded her. His hand was warm when he pressed the phone into hers and when he gently rubbed her upper arm to move her out of his way so he could actually get to fresh clothes. If she continued to watch the muscles of his back play under his skin, then that was for her to know and for him to never find out.

She brought the phone to her chest and flinched when the caller started shouting again.

“-EVEN LISTENING TO ME? HELLO? AM I TALKING TO YOUR VOICEMAIL? A VERY LONG VOICEMAIL? HELLO. YOU PICK UP THE PHONE RIGHT NOW OR I’M CALLING THE POLICE.”

“Stop shouting,” she barked in the momentary pause.

“Jesus, Ash, you could’ve picked up sooner or I don’t know, _answered your texts_.”

Okay, definitely Allison. Aisling could practically hear the other girl stamping her feet.

“I just woke up, haven’t even had a chance to read them yet.”

“Well, guess what I woke up to? It was a text from Stiles, and it said you slept with Derek, in all caps complete with spelling and punctuation errors. What the hell were you thinking? I thought you didn’t want to be his mate. You told my dad as much! You said the same thing to me!”

“It’s not like I just showed up with a game plan. It just sort of happened, and I’m just going to have to ask you to shut up before you get the wrong idea. Whatever Stiles texted you is probably a gross exaggeration of the truth. We didn’t _sleep together_ sleep together, it was just in the same room, in the same bed,” Aisling tried to inject her statement with as much confident nonchalance as she could muster, but she heard Derek’s harrumph over the clinking of his belt as he adjusted it around his waist.

He continued to sift through the rest of the drawers, the metal handles clicking against the wood exterior whenever he closed one, until he sat down in the desk chair, crossing his legs over each other to rest his heels on the bed.

Aisling chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment before she flicked him on the side of the head. Covering the phone so Allison couldn’t hear, she hissed, “That’s for laughing. This is your fault.”

He glared but kept his seat.

“It was family dinner night last night, and I had the time of my life trying to cover for you. Then Stiles texted that you were going to meet Derek, and obviously I had to bail.”

“ _Obviously_.”

“Shut up. My dad was still awake by the time I got back, and he was _still_ camped in the living room when I got up. He’s furious, Ash, seriously furious.”

Aisling pulled her sweater’s neck up to cover the lower half of her face. “You can’t get him out of the house?”

Allison gave a strangled scream, or something like it, that was totally not attractive coming from her. “I tried to convince him that you must’ve just stayed the night at the station, but me leaving and coming back without you kind of killed that lie. You need to get here ASAP, Ash, before he hunts you down himself.”

“I won’t be long. I think I have a ride,” Aisling muttered, hanging up and coolly staring at the werewolf across from her.

Leather seats had never been Aisling’s preference. The tough material had a knack for never being at the right temperature. They were too cold in the winter to sit upon without the initial shock, and they were always scalding in the summer without a blanket or a towel draped over them.  Easy cleaning couldn’t make up for comfort, but if that was how Derek wanted to live, that was fine. He’d just have to get used to carrying a spare towel in the backseat.

That was another source of irritation. He drove a two-door Camaro, which was nice and fancy and just flashy enough in black to reinforce his Alpha status, but it was still a stinking two-door. She refrained from clawing the seat when it gave her trouble sliding forward to her ideal distance from the dash, just to spare Derek from the agony of watching his car being torn to pieces.

“That was Allison, if you didn’t already know,” Aisling said as they started through the crowded streets.

She couldn’t believe she’d slept for so long. She had meant to return home with Stiles after a brief chat with Derek, no later than 11, but more than twelve hours later she found herself in Derek’s car. She ought to have packed sunglasses; her forehead ached from squinting against the searing daylight.

“I heard.”

“I think it’s a safe bet that the whole pack knows I . . . shared your bed last night.”

“Just forget it happened. You wanted an extended engagement so just ignore them. It won’t happen again.”

Something about the nonchalance in his voice made her heart ache. She couldn’t just forget it, but jumping into a real, bona fide courtship with him still frightened her. And forgetting anything that Stiles had texted literally everyone out wouldn’t be a walk in the park, not with Peter’s perversity and Erica’s refusal to accept Aisling as a part of the pack.

She gulped, but her throat was too dry for the habit to calm her.

“You’ve seen the files on me by now, haven’t you?”

Derek nodded and kept his eyes on the road, hands turning over each other to turn the sleek Camaro onto a side street away from the worst of the lunch rush traffic.

“Last night, before Stiles brought me to the flat, I was working late on some files for his dad. I found something you should look at.” Her hands shook when they reached into the bag by her feet and trembled with she set it across her lap. “I think it’s best you put the car in park before you see it.”

His eyes remained on the road for the rest of the drive, and neither attempted to bring the other into pointless conversation. Without the small talk, most of the unease fell from Aisling’s shoulders and she could breathe comfortably. She chanced a glance at him through her eyelashes. The cool confidence in his posture reminded her of the night in the Hale House. It had been the first time they’d seen each other since her abrupt departure. He seemed so in control then. But now she’d shaken him. The bite had shaken him and the news that she was being controlled by an alpha had uprooted the life he’d been trying to piece back together. The guilt weighed heavily in her chest, but she quickly squashed it down when she realized they’d just pulled into the driveway.

The moment he parked, he turned in his chair and held out a hand for the files on her lap. When she didn’t move instantly, he raised a single brow and repeated the gesture.

“Sorry, sorry, here,” she spluttered and pressed herself against the door. Her hand slid between her body and the handle, fumbling for the door lock. She released a quiet breath when she flipped the switch, curling her fingers around the metal in case she needed a quick break.

His eyes scanned the summary of the report on the first page faster than lightning, flipping to the next so quickly the first nearly tore itself free of the staples. The more he read, the redder his eyes glowed until he had to shut his eyes against the oncoming change. She tightened her grasp on the door handle but held her breath.

She blinked at the wave of air that hit her. The files had been pressed so violently back into her hands.

“Stiles’ dad doesn’t think it was me, but I don’t know, it’s not every day you find a spiral carved into a wall weeks before I’m found painting another one onto a bridge.”

“It wasn’t you so drop it.”

The door locks clicked open, and he shifted in his seat to grasp the wheel with both hands.

“You should go home.”

“That’s it?”

“Jasper, out.”

“What, no, you are telling me what you know because obviously it’s not good.”

“No. You are going home,” he grumbled and reached across to open the door for her.

She raised her hands, to avoid contact, but she refused to let him get his hands on the release for the seatbelt. “I’m not getting out, genius.”

“Yes, you are.” The _If I have to get you out of this car and pull you out myself_ was implied.

Aisling glared at him, daring him to try. He only returned the stare. _And_ placed his hand over hers, slowly prying her fingers off the release one by one until with one push, well, two counting the nudge out, Aisling was left standing on the driveway.

“I am going to end you,” she replied to the roar of the Camaro as it belted back down the street.

Unfortunately, that roar worked too well to grab the attention of the two people she really didn’t want to see. Allison, being the first out of the door, should’ve meant she was the first to start screaming, but that award went to her dad instead. Still, Allison did get in a nice punch to the shoulder before her dad traded yelling at Aisling for yelling at Allison instead.

As it was, Aisling didn’t even make it to the guest room with a single moment of quiet. They just kept hounding after her.

“Aisling Mayce Jasper-“

Damn it, her full name, really?

“-I do not care that your mother stuck you in the middle of a literal werewolf freak show, but that does not give you free license to ignore that you’re still a part of this family. You’ve been working nights for days now, and I expected you to be here for just one dinner with the family. Yet you can’t even do that.”

Aisling groaned inwardly and steeled herself for the guilt trip.

“And not even that, Allison ups and leaves because of something to do with you. You are both unbelievable. I know this family has gone through a lot because of Hale’s pack, but I expected more from you. Maybe a little restraint, Aisling. If you can’t get a handle on yourself soon, I will call her mother and you can say your good byes to Beacon Hills because I will make sure you don’t come back. I should’ve called her the moment you bit Hale. I’m supposed to be the one against werewolves in this family, and yet I’m the one going out on a limb to protect you. It would be nice if you could try to do the same.”

She didn’t answer him for a while. Even Allison didn’t try to fill the gap in conversation.

“You are grounded,” he told Allison before stepping forward to place both hands on Aisling’s shoulders, not even bothering to be gentle about it. “And you, you will be going to and from the station with me. You will work your eight hours, and you will come home. You will not see or speak to either of the Hales, and you will do whatever you have to do to stop whatever bond you initiated. Am I understood?”

“What?” was all she could manage for a good while.

“I’m stopping this, right now. Ever since Hale came back to Beacon Hills, this town has had its share of monsters. I lost my wife because of him. I can lose the two of you too. Allison’s only human.”

Behind him Allison huffed and threw her hands into the air, stomping out of the guest room. Well, there went Aisling’s last shred of moral support.

“I know what I’m doing, Chris. Derek and I aren’t going to continue with the bond,” she assured him. _For the time being_ , but he didn’t need to know that. “But if you think severing all ties to them is going to solve everything, here’s a news flash. Take a look.”

Maybe if they hadn’t already been in her room, that line would have allowed her a good chance to storm off too. She settled for shoving the file into his hands like Derek had to her and using it to force him out into the hall, shutting the door in his face before he could even get the folder open. She also probably could’ve marched off to throw herself onto the bed in a fit of teenage rage, but sitting against the door made sure he couldn’t possibly get in because that was the last thing she needed after she dropped the bombshell she just did. Go, werewolves, superhuman strength trumps traditional door locks and normal human strength every time.

She leaned her head against the door, slipped in her earphones, and turned up the music.

As much as she dreaded spending time with Derek, she’d have to corner him sometime about whoever made that spiral. Obviously he knew the culprit and it had to be related to the Alpha controlling her or he would’ve admitted it sooner.

Dammit, she should’ve asked if it had been Deucalion, the faceless wolf Peter said he saw in her head. If he denied that, she’d have all the confirmation she needed. But no, hindsight doesn’t get you anywhere.

Neither does bellowing at a closed door, but her uncle would figure that out eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not kidding when I titled this. I did mean "slow build" when I tagged this too. And I am so very sorry.


	8. Snuff it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it hot in here or is it just the demon in my head?

Allison wasn’t taking the grounding thing easily. Aisling expected her to because of her wealth of experience thanks to Scott’s being a werewolf. Even more Aisling came to Beacon Hills, being grounded had been a common, nearly permanent, fixture in Allison’s life, but maybe the past few months of relative freedom had spoiled her.

Unfortunately that left similarly grounded Aisling to deal with the fallout.

Which came in the form of Lydia coming over to alleviate their boredom, and when Aisling said “their,” she really meant “Allison’s.” Because she didn’t need to a repeat of her totally-not-a-walk-of-shame. She hadn’t even done anything with Derek, and if she had, there was definitely no shame in that. If not for his relation to Peter, he would have been quite a catch. Lydia’s words, not hers.

The redhead had been prancing around her room, throwing one outfit after another onto the floor Aisling had painstakingly vacuumed and shampooed three hours earlier to distract herself from filing through the rest of the cases Stiles’ dad gave her. Nothing else had caught her eye since the spiral on the warehouse door, and the fear of that she’d find something else kept her from her usual enthusiasm.

To be fair, Allison did her best to keep the floor clean, scooping up Lydia’s mess but depositing them onto the bed without attempting to fold them again.

Aisling slammed her fist onto the table harder than she’d expected, startling herself and the two girls. She hadn’t even noticed she drifted off.

“You okay, Ash?”

Allison’s fingers traced the lace hem of the shirt she’d just laid out on the bed. Funny, Aisling didn’t remember buying that shirt. Must have been a gift from someone. It did look nice though, would probably look nicer on someone with more fashion sense like Allison, but that was a given.

“Ash?”

God, she needed to stop doing that.

She blinked.

Or she thought she did because the next time her eyes opened, Lydia stood in front of her with an empty cup in one hand. Its contents, Aisling assumed, dripped from her hair and down her cheeks.

“I’m calling my Dad. Can you watch her, Lydia? Don’t let her close her eyes.”

Allison pulled her phone out of her back pocket and stepped out of the room, furtively glancing over her shoulder as she walked out as if Aisling couldn’t even last that long.

“Wh-what,” she smacked her lips and gulped several times, but her throat remained as dry as a desert, “what just happened?”

She must have been swaying too because Lydia had to grab her by the shoulders to steady her. Her hands were warm but nothing like the warmth of Derek’s hand before he kicked her out of his car. Derek. How was he doing? She still needed to ask him about Deucalion. She ought to do that now.

A sharp smack forced a bright ruby red color onto her cheeks and a painful ringing into her ears.

“God, Allison, could your ringtone be any louder? Just pick up the phone already,” she groaned.

The two humans shared a glance, but the brunette could only shrug and wave the phone screen in Lydia’s and Aisling’s direction. “Um, Ash, I’m already on the phone. There’s no ringtone.”

Her stomach churned violently and she clapped a hand over her mouth, a hand reaching out blindly for something to hold onto. “Guys, can I please just lie down? I think I’m going to be sick.”

Lydia couldn’t have stepped back faster. She had the common sense to look slightly guilty though when Aisling whined. “Oh, no, Allison, this is not what I signed up for when I said I would help you two clean out your closets. I will not have _anyone’s_ vomit on my shoes. These are _brand new_!”

“He’s not picking up,” Allison announced, finally stepping back into the room. She crossed the last few feet with shaky steps though her feet had always been sure in her worn suede heels.

Aisling commented that they’d need to be replaced soon, but her voice must’ve failed her. Golden eyes searched brown. Nothing. Allison hadn’t even heard her. She pouted and turned her glance downward. Her cousin’s lips were moving, but now she was the one who couldn’t hear. She brought her hands up to her head, cupping them behind her ears. When that didn’t improve things, she boxed herself in the ears. Hitting the TV always made the signal come back at the retirement home in Bixby. Her pout turned into a sour frown when that still didn’t work. She didn’t understand why it wasn’t working.

Allison’s lips moved faster and her eyes became more desperate, but Aisling couldn’t hear her. She just wanted to hear her. Tears in her eyes, she snapped at the hands that tried to capture her wrists, human fangs too short to break the tough shell of the cognac leather sleeve. Yet the hands remained wrapped around the slender joints, slowly moving Aisling’s arms back to her sides, pressing them together into her lap.

Lydia disappeared into the bathroom while Allison continued to speak to her. Aisling doubted she was flapping her mouth just for the hell of it, though that’s what it amounted to. Some time after, one of those handheld thermometers was shoved into her ear. She shoved back against it, eyes narrowed, as if more trauma might fix her sudden hearing loss, but no dice on that front.

God, holy hell, she didn’t even fall asleep that time.

Her hands frantically stroked her burning cheek. As cold and clammy as they were, they worked better than a cold pack to cool her down, only clammy hands was not a good sign. She gestured for the thermometer, having given up on speaking when she couldn’t even hear herself. Lydia passed it to her with a sidelong glance to her best friend.

 _103_. _2_. Well, that explained it. Not everything of course, but it was a start. She’d never heard, ha, _heard_ , ironic, of a fever causing hearing loss, especially this early into it.

If anyone had tried to quantify how much Aisling’s face was slapped within the forty-five minutes of getting her prepped to go to the hospital and the additional hour and a half of being stuck in the waiting room, they would have failed horrendously. Even Lydia had to take a break, resorting to simply fanning her face every time she passed out. Aisling probably wouldn’t remember any of it when she could stay awake long enough to hold a conversation. She couldn’t even blink without her mind jumping to the next inane fact it could come up with.

She didn’t even realize how much hyraxes looked like tiny vampires until now. They were such amazing little creatures.

* * *

Lydia switched from fanning Aisling’s prone form to fanning herself. They’d been in the waiting room long enough by the time they were actually admitted into the hospital and Aisling was slapped with the requisite hospital bracelet. Allison dutifully answered any and all questions put to her, although there were some notable hiccups. Werewolves had … allergies of their own, but Stiles had always been the expert on that sort of thing.

But Aisling couldn’t have gotten into anything like that in the less than 72 hours since they were grounded. After he gave up trying to talk about the contents of the file, Chris went to Deaton for an emergency supply of mountain ash. No wolf would come in or out of the property without his permission, and Sheriff Stilinski never let her out of his sight while she worked her day shift.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t an allergy.

“No one’s answering their phones. Ugh, I don’t know what else to do.”

“Well, the nurse is supposed to come by to check her cognition in,” she glanced down at her watch, “nine minutes. Aside from her utterly failing to remember that she’s in the hospital, I don’t think you’ll be missed if you went on a coffee run. _Clearly_ we’re going to be here for a while.”

“You sure you don’t mind watching her?”

“I do have a phone. I won’t be bored,” Lydia responded with a forced smile, waving said phone in the air. She propped her elbows on Aisling’s bed and didn’t speak again.

Allison didn’t mind the break. She did mind having to go back out into the cesspool of viruses that was the waiting room. A thousand hand-squeezed glasses of orange juices wouldn’t provide enough protection for this. Her hands smelled strongly of alcohol by the time she got back to her car, but the drive back would be better with some coffee to drown it out. Lydia could be picky about her drinks, but at least it made it that much easier to order for her. She’d heard the redhead berate the barista often enough for butchering her “simple” request to know exactly how she liked it.

And if she’d deliberately gone to the coffee shop where Aisling first met Peter, well, that was pure coincidence.

Not her plan at all.

“You need to see her,” she stated as she slid onto the barstool looking out into the street, her fingers soaking up the warmth of the large mug her own coffee had been served in. Lydia _did_ say she didn’t mind watching over Aisling.

The figure beside her shifted minutely, the silver buttons of the jacket clicking against the countertop. “I can’t, not with the ash.”

“I’m not talking about visiting her in the dead of night when my dad’s going to be waiting for the opportunity to shoot you with a handgun,” she hissed under her breath before she took her first sip. Maybe too much caramel but that never killed anyone and she certainly wasn’t complaining. She made sure to ask for the real stuff this time. “I’m talking about seeing her _now_. She’s in the hospital.”

Other guests in the coffee shop twisted their torsos to investigate when they heard the slam. He held his fist down by his side, the cuff of his jacket covering the reddening skin over the outer edge of his palm.

“You can’t ignore the bond. I don’t care what Ash wants. If it’s hurting her like this, it needs to stop.” Allison dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, not wanting to smudge her mascara. “I can’t even reach my dad, or he’d be the one yelling at you now.”

He tossed his head, flexing his shoulders, anything to force himself to relax, but the inquisitive eyes of the coffee shop’s patrons never left his back. His voice was at the edge of a growl when he replied, “The bond is a two-way street. It’s the Alpha.”

Allison never did get to finish her coffee, and Derek didn’t allow her to bring Lydia hers, some stupid rule about having beverages in a car with a predominantly leather interior. She did, however, find herself furiously texting the redhead after calling her proved fruitless.

“She’s not answering.”

Derek swore loudly.

“YOU NEED TO LEAVE HER. IT’S NOT DEREK. GET OUT!” she typed and tapped send. “Should we call the others?”

“No, the fewer wolves there, the better. He won’t be as tempted to take over her if it’s just me.”

“You’re her mate, I highly doubt that,” Allison laughed before the sound died in her throat. Aisling was her cousin and she had some sicko in her head driving her to mate with someone else. No explanation would ever make that _not_ creepy. “Drive faster. We know the sheriff.”

Derek hardly missed a beat when he turned the car into the hospital parking lot. He threw it into park in the nearest space he could find, locked up, and bolted down the slanted floors until he continued his frenzied pace right into the waiting room lobby. All the nurses flinched when he slammed both palms on the countertop.

“Aisling Jasper. She was admitted for a high fever.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t allow you access to that information.”

“She’s my cousin. I’m the one who brought her here. He’s her fiancé,” Allison explained breathlessly. Well,  it wasn’t a complete lie. “We need to see her.”

“Hector, you took over for Carla, didn’t you,” the nurse closest to Derek called over her shoulder.

A blonde head peeked around the corner and nodded the affirmative.

“He’ll take you to her.”

It was strange, seeing Derek acting so out of character. He moved as restlessly as a caged animal, fidgeting constantly behind the nurse’s easy pace through the tight hallways and the mess of open beds shoved up against the walls.

They passed where Allison had left Lydia. Derek’s eyes widened for a moment, flashing scarlet, before he caught the nurse by his elbow. With his other hand, he pointed to the floor.

Barely visible amongst the playfully scattered chips of color in the tiles was a single droplet of blood, mostly dried and gummy in texture by now, but unmistakably Aisling’s.

“There’s blood,” he stated when the nurse failed to speak immediately. “What happened?”

“Derek, Derek, you need to stop before you get us kicked out,” Allison hissed in his ear.

“The girl that was with her, she said your friend just got a nosebleed. We treated her, but the fever still hadn’t broken so we had to move her into one of the rooms equipped for an ice bath. She should still be there now, recovering, not in the ice anymore.”

“Just a nosebleed, maybe it’s not … you know, after all.”

“It’s him,” he grunted back. “Did she say anything else?”

The nurse finally slowed down to a full stop at a door at the very end of the hall. “Nothing we could make sense of. She’s delirious from the headache. She tried to bite two other nurses when we had to move her into the bath. Once she’s stable enough, she’ll be taken down to get an MRI, but other than that, they might have to put her into a coma. Her temperature is already close to causing permanent brain damage. I’m sorry.”

After he left, Allison moved closer to the glass window separating them from her cousin. That’s when she spotted Lydia in the corner of the room nursing a busted lip with a cold pack poorly wrapped in a brown paper towel.

“Allison! You didn’t even have the decency to bring me coffee?” she shrieked, chucking the ice in Allison’s direction before she realized the biting pain in her lip refused to stop.

“I’m sorry, I just called Derek, and he thought it might be the alpha, not just some flu going around.”

“Derek? You called Derek?” Lydia rolled her eyes. “Nothing’s breaking her fever, _nothing_. And they’ve tried _everything_ short of a medically induced coma. She started lashing out.”

“She nailed you, huh?” Allison smiled, but the effort was hollow.

“Obviously.” The redhead groaned and accepted the ice pack Derek held out to her. “She started talking like those kids possessed by the devil, saying things like she’d rip their hearts out and hang their intestines like party lights. Oh my God, I wouldn’t even be in here if I didn’t think Miss Mary Jesus-Freak would slip her an overdose of morphine. She already set up a crucifix and a pocket-sized Bible on the table.”

“That sounds like fun. Is she doing any better now?”

She seemed better, but after the nurse Hector’s little story and Lydia’s, Allison hesitated to move closer to the bed. She could see the metal handcuffs holding Aislng’s arms to the bedrails. Nothing fastened her legs. Aisling’s chest moved rapidly up and down but not so deeply as to be described as labored. It was more like panting to rid herself of the heat.

“She’s getting weaker. Do either of you still carry around wolfsbane?”

“What? Why would I-“ Allison started, but Lydia was quicker to cut her off, producing a silver arrowhead from her purse. “Where did you even get that?”

“From you. From your shelf, specifically.”

“It needs to get into her bloodstream.”

“There’s enough wolfsbane in that point to kill a fully functioning werewolf. You’re going to kill her!”

“Do you have a better idea?”

No, for once, Allison did not, but she shifted uneasily on the balls of her feet. This couldn’t end well. She knew the wolfsbane used in Argent weapons better than anyone else in the room, and the strain in that point was especially potent. But Derek had survived a wolfsbane bullet before by forcing more into the wound. Stiles couldn’t get over how close it had put Derek to death before he could heal himself. Aisling was strong, she had to be to have survived as long as she had, but that didn’t automatically grant her full immunity.

Yet the point still found its way into Allison’s trembling hands. She edged closer to the side of the hospital bed and inhaled deeply. She just needed to dump the contents of the arrowhead into her mouth and make sure she swallowed. Up close, she could finally see the extent of the damage to her cousin’s wrists. The skin had been rubbed raw. The doctors and nurses must have all approached her from the left because her right wrist had been wrapped tight in bandages already stained pink underneath.

Just one easy movement, but no one had prepared her for the sudden lurch of Aisling’s body against the handcuffs.

Gleaming a vivid ruby red, narrowed eyes locked onto Allison’s.

“Just do it,” Lydia shouted from the back of the room.

Allison hesitated and dropped more than half of the wolfsbane onto the starchy white sheets when Aisling struck out with her leg. The wolf growled savagely, curling her legs underneath her. There was more than enough power in those taut muscles to leap clear off the bed but at the risk of severe damage to her bound wrists. Werewolves could heal, but she’d still feel the pain when the Alpha left her mind again.

“She’s not your cousin anymore. She’s just another monster that needs to be put down. Now do what you’ve been trained to do. You hesitate and you die.”

It had been so long since she last heard her mother screaming at her, but time had not diminished the force of her words.

Just as Derek stepped up behind her to do the job himself, she closed the distance between her and her cousin, slammed her palm onto the wolf’s forehead to pin her against the bed, and crammed the remaining wolfsbane into her mouth. For all her bravado, Allison still lacked the brute strength to hold back the raging creature for long. Derek shouldered her roughly out of the way so he could hold one hand over Aisling’s mouth and drape his upper body over her abdomen, using his weight to restrain her.

She thrashed as violently as a fish out of water and with just as much coordination.

Her throat convulsed, and just like that the room went from a raucous scratching of the hospital bed sheets and the clanking of the handcuffs on the rails to a deathly calm.

Half afraid to release his grip, Derek backed away from Aisling’s still form, allowing Allison back to her side. Frantically her fingers searched all along the exposed skin of Aisling’s neck until the breath she’d been holding finally escaped her lungs.

“She’s okay.”

“Good, because I think they’re coming back for her MRI,” Lydia announced moments before three nurses entered the room.

While Aisling was wheeled down to the machine, the two humans and the wolf followed a few paces behind, muttering under their breath like a trio of poorly disguised secret agents. Which, if Stiles was asked, was the total truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was a bit later in updates than I would like, but I am still on track for NaNoWriMo so it's not so bad. Plus, this was a teeny bit longer than usual.


	9. Holiday Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AGJLAKGLAGAnaga agkjal I GOT TWO MALE RATS YESTERDAY AND I SPENT THE LAST FEW DAYS GETTING SUPPLIES AND PLAYING WITHTHEM.  
> I just love rats. So much. Here's your chapter.

Aisling dreaded the thought of meeting the pack so soon after her jaunt to the hospital. It was bad enough that Allison had called Derek for help because of it. She’d gotten a clean bill of health once the fever broke, but no one would tell her what caused it or even what stopped it. The nurses couldn’t even explain it. By the time they’d gotten the MRI, the fever had already broken. Allison looked sheepish but played deaf to all of Aisling’s questions. The same went for Lydia, and it might have gone the same with Derek if he’d stuck around long enough for her to wake up.

His scent clung to her skin, her hair, and her clothes to the point of suffocation before she even opened her eyes. Even out cold she had felt him there in the cramped room she’d been moved to for recovery, but he disappeared before she had a chance to put a face to the scent.

And now they expected her to visit the pack and its alpha as if nothing had ever happened.

She knew she’d failed them again, and if she were Erica, she’d have left the pack by now. She knew she was a threat to them. Lydia had just been trying to help, but she’d still punched her in the face. Granted, she hadn’t been in control at that point, but that was the problem. Like they kept saying, she was just a ticking time bomb. Sooner or later they wouldn’t be able to stop her at just one punch.

“Don’t worry about it. We’re going to get you some help,” Allison kept telling her.

The words might have brought some comfort were it not for the fact that even Chris kept his interactions with her to a minimum. _Probably preparing himself for the inevitable_ , Aisling guessed. It’s easier to put down animals you aren’t close to.

“Peter said he’d train you to fight it,” Isaac would remind her, although the promise reassured her less than he hoped.

The older wolf had always been a sketchy character and his decision to turn her hadn’t resulted in the greatest family relationship for Aisling, but he could’ve let her die in the fire. She owed him enough to try, but so far, the line of ash around her home prevented any of his attempts to visit. Chris had limited her phone use strictly to emergencies so any calls Peter or Stiles might have made went right over her head.

She could’ve used the help though. Maybe if she could just get a handle on herself, the pack could stop being so afraid of her. Having a little control over herself could go a long way to taking up the role Isaac wanted her to. If she managed to do it before Boyd and Erica decided to split, then more points for her for keeping Isaac happy, but she was more alone now than she was when she started.

“I’ve got a team that can do just fine without your help right now. You just need your rest. Fever that bad’s probably got some virus still kicking in you.”

She could only interact with the pack through her work at the station or as an assistant coach, but Finstock had decided to close her out, citing the need for recovery. He was just scared she’d force his team to pull muscles. She wasn’t stupid.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have overloaded you like that with all those documents. Why don’t you take a day off or two? You’ve done a lot of good for us lately; it’s time we’re good for you too.”

Stiles’ dad had always been nice, but this pushed her into the domain of fragility. Where she, as a werewolf, didn’t belong. Had she been fragile, she should have died in the fire, werewolf or no, but she’d survived and continued to survive in spite of the insane recovery that was asked of her, the mental wipe down perpetrated by her mother and her aunt, and the mind games of the alpha Deucalion that no one would speak to her about.

“I’m fine. It was a random fever. They didn’t find anything wrong with me,” Aisling insisted, returning the box of files to the desktop.

Sheriff Stilinski scratched the back of his head but nodded anyway. “I’m just worried about you, Ash. I was so happy to see you back here, back home; I’d hate to see you leave.”

_Ash_. He gave her that nickname.

Back when she was still recovering in the hospital, he would visit and tell her stories to keep her company while Stiles did his schoolwork in the corner. She’d still been in pretty deep, kept under strict medication for the burns. She remembered hating him for it. The word only brought back memories of being inside the house when it fell apart around her. She wanted to get away from those thoughts and the nickname only served to haunt her, but from him, it was different. The sincerity in her voice warmed, rather than wounded, her.

Peter had been the one to save her from the fire, but Stiles’ dad had been the one to pull her out of it.

Even her own father hadn’t been there as much for her recovery. Now she knew that he and her mother had been struggling to find a means to cope with the news of her lycanthropy without exposing it to the rest of the family, but that hardly lessened the sting of abandonment. Of course they’d keep their distance, just like her uncle was doing now. In case she needed to be put down, they couldn’t be around to let it slip.

Grateful for the distraction she immersed herself in work, sorting through a vast majority of the files she still had left since she found the spiral. Nothing else of note happened in Beacon Hills beyond that, and if she weren’t a werewolf, she might consider Beacon Hills to be an ideal place to live. Only, becoming part of the pack’s world had a way of opening one’s eyes to the darker side of life.

A wan smile was on his face when he stepped out of his office, hands held awkwardly behind his back.

“Should I be worried?” she asked, trying to sound light-hearted.

“I know it’s too early for the holidays, but I think you deserve a sneak preview.”

She laughed so hard she nearly fell from the chair when he dropped the gift on top of what paperwork was left. The poor thing was so horrendously wrapped that several different patterns of wrapping paper had been tacked on to cover the gaps, some of them not even from Christmas themes. Being the size of a bowling ball now, she feared unwrapping it would reduce it to a matchbox.

“What is it?” She lifted it up and observed it from all angles, which were numerous thanks to the sheriff’s exquisite wrapping skills.

“Technically it’s already yours, but, you know, I think it’s best if you opened it first.”

“You really know how to build up the excitement.”

She slid her nails under the many edges of tape, peeling them away from the wrapping until she could pry it apart from the gift inside with minimal damage to the paper. As a child she’d always done it to use the wrappers for the next year, but in practice, she never remembered where she hid the paper to use it again. Still, it was fun stalling, giving her mind enough time to come up with the craziest ideas.

The first thing that peeked out of the nest of scarlet and gold plaid paper was a slender miniscule golden paw. She raised an eyebrow at the sheriff, but he only gestured for her to continue. Stripping away more of the protective covering revealed three more of the tiny clawed feet supporting the base of a box covered in soft orange silk patterned with pink embroidered flowers.  Only one side of the box retained the vibrant color, and when she flicked open the gold catch at the front, she understood why.

A slender white neck curled upwards from the center of the box, matching white wings coming together into a point above it. The more she opened the lid, the higher the thing rose until, fully exposed, the white and grey charred swan began to spin to the tranquil chime of the whirring gears hidden in the base.

* * *

_“Laura, Aisling, get the tree stand ready. Derek and your father are coming in with the tree in a few minutes.”_

_“Yes, ma’am,” the smaller brunette squeaked before she slipped around her taller partner._

_“What did I tell you, Aisling? You don’t have to call me that.”_

_“Yes, Mama,” she giggled at the top of the stairs, poking her head between the poles of the rails._

_The atmosphere bled with happiness and a warmth unlike any Aisling had ever experienced before. Holidays with her own family had always been rather short, without all the pomp and circumstance of prayer over dinner, decorations on the lawn, or garlands and trees in the home. Aisling enjoyed being able to spend time with her dad, treasuring every minute, but her mother always urged her to eat faster and go to bed earlier. That way Santa Claus could drop of f her presents before everyone else._

_Dancing merrily arm in arm with a lithe but strong-limbed Laura, Aisling returned to the living room, clearing a space in front of the window for the red and green metal stand. Laura immediately got to work untangling the strings of lights, always the most level-headed even when everyone else would have given up and just bought a new pack from the store. Mama draped the royal blue skirt over the arm of the tall wingback chair. Aisling couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch the soft fabric, spotted with shining silver sequins and appliqued felt reindeer drawing a red sleigh sewn from a mishmash of patches, some plaid, others checked, the rest randomly patterned._

_Mama set her hand upon her shoulder, and Aisling nearly jumped straight out of her skin._

_“Why don’t you put the skirt on when the boys get it set up? I bet you’ll make it look very nice,” she offered, passing the heavy material to the child._

_“But what about Cora? That was her job last year and the year before.”_

_The matriarch rose and pointed Aisling to the kitchen where Cora, much smaller than even Aisling, stood on the very tips of her toes on a wooden step stool, fighting to mix something in a blue bowl larger than her own head. Aisling laughed at the very sight, so admirable the young girl’s effort._

_“Don’t you worry, sweetheart. Cora’s job this year is helping to make Santa’s cookies. It’s a very big responsibility, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you helped her with this one.”_

_“Ho, ho, ho!” chortled the deep voice of Papa Hale._

_“It’s Papa!” All three girls screamed and dropped their tasks in favor of opening the door to the frosty winter air and the massive fir._

_They ran circles around the old man, who leaned in for a quick kiss to his wife’s cheek, before he maneuvered the tree upright. His son on the other side of the tree, hiding between the branches and the window, had the same inherent magnetism but lacked the enthusiasm for the girls._

_“Derek!” little Cora howled before pouncing at his legs around the trees lower branches._

_He reprimanded her gently and nudged her away with a foot. “Let’s just get this tree set up before I decide to drop it on one of you.”_

_Laura snorted, but both Cora and Aisling stopped their giggling, instead exchanging it for nervous squirming. Aisling had the benefit of diverting some of the extra energy into folding, opening, and refolding the tree skirt, but her breathing quickened exponentially when Derek, his father, and Laura finished screwing the supporting bolts into the trunk and signaled for Aisling to come forward with the skirt._

_Like before, Mama stepped forward to rescue her from her nerves, picking up a small orange embroidered box from the mantelpiece and opening it up to reveal the glistening white swan inside. On cue the music began to pour out from the little contraption, a sweet little melody that melted all her fears into nothing._

_She didn’t have to speak, didn’t want to, when Mama Hale prodded her along until she stood before a sheepish Derek. He received a sharp elbow to his ribs and bowing low, offered his hand for a dance. This pomp and circumstance she could get accustomed to._

_Like children, they danced maniacally with made up steps and moves, more twirling and spinning than any semblance of form, but both laughed freely and delighted in the friendship between them. Sometime while they danced the skirt found its way around the base of the tree, and the rest of the family quickly joined in, Mama with Cora and Papa with Laura. Every so often they would trade partners, but the end of the night found Aisling back with Derek, curled up together under a knit violet blanket on the end of the couch nearest to the tree._

* * *

She had barely set the box down onto the desk before she enveloped the sheriff in a hug so quickly she actually managed to knock him off balance. Tears clogged her throat and stained his uniform but neither moved away from the other.

“You moved away so suddenly, it got left behind with the other items we were able to recover after the fire. Talia wanted you to have it.”

“I’m so sorry. I just ruined your uniform,” she whined even as she tried to hide the smile on her face.

He just waved it off and closed the music box again. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to call it a day. You got someone coming to pick you up?”

“Yeah, um, Stiles actually.”

He stopped halfway through donning his jacket. “Stiles, really? He taking you out someplace?”

“Just to hang out with some of his friends. I haven’t seen them since Finstock decided I was still too sick to help coach.”

He chuckled. “Finstock’s just scared you’ll kill his team.”

She flailed her arms Stiles-like and shouted, “That’s exactly what I told Allison!”

Clapping her on the shoulder, he finished gearing himself up to leave for the night. “You let Stiles know I expect him back before midnight tonight. He has a test in physics tomorrow. Make sure he knows I know about it.”

“Thank you, for the music box.”

“It was nothing. Like I said, it was already yours.”

Once he left through the front doors, it became clear just how much later he worked than all the others in the office. Already the lights had switched to their lower setting to save power, part of the new town initiative to be “green.” Silence dominated the empty cubicles and the stark break room where one of the newer women Cassandra had kindly left a basket of individually wrapped muffins. Stiles would’ve killed her if she hadn’t caught the sheriff reaching for the double chocolate chunk chocolate muffin. There were still a couple left in the basket. No one else wanted to take them on the grounds that they were too old to metabolize it anymore.

Either way, Aisling planned to enjoy the hell out of them. Shoving two into her bag and a third into her mouth, she headed for the fridge in the corner to pour herself some milk. She made it halfway before muffled shuffling in the back of the station caught her attention.

Every muscle tensed and she strained her ears to pinpoint the source of the noise. She crept forward until she could grab the hooked rod used to push open the top windows, steadying its heavy weight both hands.

The shuffling came closer to the corner between the break room and the cubicles, and she brought the rod over her shoulder, just waiting to strike until the intruder crashed into one of the desks and sent papers fluttering everywhere.

“Oh my god, my dad’s going to kill me.”

She’d recognize that voice anywhere.

“Stiles!” she groaned, stepping around the corner to find the poor kid trying to scoop all the pages back into the proper order. “You could’ve switched the lights back on.”

“I could see just fine,” he defended, standing and dropping the pages proudly back onto the desk.

“I can tell,” Aisling commented through a mouthful of chocolate muffin. Then she laughed around said mouthful when it produced the desired effect in Stiles.

“What, who brought those? Are there any more? You better not have eaten all the chocolate. Hell, my dad better not have eaten all the chocolate. He didn’t, did he? I only put you in this job because someone needs to watch him while I _further my education_.”

“Don’t worry. I made sure he stayed well away from all the muffins. I was also told to make sure that you get home before midnight tonight, something about a physics exam.”

Stiles grunted as he sifted through the basket of goodies. “I’ll be fine. Besides, the time I get home is all dependent on you and Derek. If you two can keep your shit together, we can all get a decent night’s rest.”

“By the way, I owe you something.”

“Wha-“

She kicked him solidly in the ass.

“That’s for texting everyone about us. Allison and I are grounded because of you, and I am _way_ too old for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so bad at chapter titles, and these chapters are getting harder and harder to do in order. I want to write the parts I have in my head.


	10. Love bites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh 7am midterms are murder, especially when you arrive early to cram but all the buildings are locked, and just ugh man i couldn't feel my fingers for a loooong time
> 
> but here's a chapter. i'm so behind on wordcount right now but i'll try to make it up

Still rubbing his sore cheeks, Stiles walked her to their waiting carriage, playing the perfect gentleman, even going as far as opening her door and loading her one bag into the back seat for her. He didn’t manage to convince her to release the music box in her hands though.

On the drive to the pack’s flat, he said, “I remember that thing from when I was a kid. I knew it was a music box, but my dad never let me turn it on. He kept saying he was holding it for someone, and he didn’t want me to break it. I never guessed it was for you.”

Aisling wiped away a tear from earlier. Her skin had become taut from the dried tracks. She didn’t need to make fresh ones. “Yeah, I just assumed everything was gone.”

Stiles drummed his fingers against the wheel, constantly glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

“I’m fine, Stiles. Just keep your eyes on the road.” She punched him lightly in the arm before she took another bite of the muffin she’d nearly forgotten. The chocolate melted in her mouth, but it didn’t have quite the same effect on her mood as it had before. “Do you know what’s on the agenda tonight? I don’t think I can stay for very long.”

He could hear the tension in her voice but forced himself to drop it. Treating her like a porcelain doll would only keep them from moving forward to find the alpha and stop him. They just had to accept she had her moments and learn how to control them, just without blaming her like Erica had during Stiles’ last encounters with her.

“No, no idea. Since the ash border was put around your place, Derek and Peter have stopped taking shifts watching the neighborhood so that’s out. Peter still has to figure out a way to train you without getting caught by my dad or Allison’s dad. Isaac’s trying to plan more pack bonding time so Boyd and Erica can get used to you. Everyone, including me and Lydia, are supposed to find the alpha on basically _zero_ information so that’ll be fun. And you, well, you’re just supposed to focus on staying alive. I haven’t been around Derek as much as Isaac has, but let’s just say you might want to try staying out of hospitals in the future.”

She slid further down into the seat, her fingers delicately turning the dial on the base of the singed music box. Her face lit up at the first notes while her eyes slid shut.

Soon Stiles found himself in a similar state. That little box had to be like mental morphine. His limbs felt leaden and his eyelids like anchors.

Like all the times before, the lights shone through the curtains over the flat windows long before Stiles pulled up to the main entrance. A gentle shake roused Aisling from her light slumber, and Stiles made absolutely certain that the box never fell from her hands in spite of her exhausted clumsiness. She stiffened whenever he touched it and tried to steady it in her hands, but after tripping three times on the stairs into the flat, her shoulders lost their tension and she stepped more lightly and more carefully than a mountain goat the rest of the way.

Isaac leapt for her the moment Aisling got the door open. Her hand barely had enough time to hold the damaged box far enough away from her body to avoid being crushed. The wolf drew back quickly once he realized his mistake.

He doesn’t have a chance to speak before Derek steps into the room, but the alpha pays little attention to the rest of them, automatically making a beeline to the kitchen where one of the others have stacked three boxes of pizza.

“Pizza?” she mouths to Isaac.

“Scott’s idea. He’s around here somewhere with Allison.” He didn’t bother keeping the silence.

“I don’t want to know.”

No one sees Derek actually eat any of the pizza, but they can all smell it on him when he seats himself in front of the compact heater.

Her feet carried her forward without any input from her brain until she stopped herself in the center of the immense living space, changing direction to rejoin Isaac on the loveseat.

Erica nestled against Boyd comfortably with their backs against the couch. Stiles placed as much distance between himself and Peter as humanly possible, which meant very little considering this was Peter. As it was, Stiles only managed to isolate himself to the set of barstools along the half-wall between the kitchen and the living room. To spare him the awkwardness of watching from afar, Scott finally appeared from one of the bedrooms stinking of Allison’s perfume so much Aisling couldn’t have told the couple apart blind.

Isaac hid a laugh behind his hand when she rubbed her nose repeatedly, trying to force out Scott’s scent after the vet aide passed them. Her nose was bright pink when she finally settled down, though Allison at least had the kindness to look embarrassed by herself, joining Lydia at the cushioned bench by the window. Her feet shuffled noisily even against the hardwood, her wrists jingling with every awkward step.

Once everyone adjusted themselves into the most comfortable positions, _most comfortable_ since Aisling couldn’t quite settle down completely, Stiles took it upon himself to get the ball rolling. No one else made a move to stop him.

“I don’t know what it’s like to have a courtship thing going on with a werewolf and I don’t want to know,” Stiles stared confidently, but very quickly the smile slipped from his face. “I do know that it’s hurting at least Aisling. If it were just mind control, it shouldn’t be affecting her so acutely, but she went to the freaking hospital, man, which is so not cool, Derek. She’s your mate, or at least she’s going to be. Everything I’ve read puts mates above the pack, but you’re not prioritizing either.”

Derek growled his name and let his eyes flash red. “I am prioritizing finding the bastard, and-“

“No, you don’t get to say anything else unless it’s about who this mysterious ‘ _bastard’_ is.” The human boy paused to let the alpha answer. When he kept his mouth resiliently shut, he continued. “Aisling, do you know anything about the alpha?”

“His name’s Deucalion,” she offered up immediately. “I’ve never seen him, but he’s got one hell of a vendetta against these two.”

Both Hales flinched when she gestured at the pair of them with flailing hands over the loveseat’s arm. Her body stretched across Isaac’s lap and the opposite arm, allowing her to dangle her legs from the edge.

“It’s not a matter that concerns you. I need more time. I _don’t_ need you to remind me that I haven’t found him yet.”

“Derek,” Peter hummed. “Your mate deserves to know the truth. If your pack happens to be in the room when she’s told, so be it.”

Another growl, louder than before, tore itself from Derek’s chest, and Aisling flinched at the sound, righting herself awkwardly against Isaac’s shoulder. The poor kid crossed his legs to give her more room on the loveseat, but between the two of them, long arms and long legs made for an incredibly cramped space.

“Derek’s mother Talia hosted one of the last meetings with the great packs of the West. There had been talk of an alliance between hunters and wolves for several years. Deucalion never believed it to be possible. He demanded proof that it could work, proof that Talia didn’t have yet. That’s where your families came in.”

Allison spared a glance toward her cousin, but Aisling shrugged and raised her eyebrows right back. How was she supposed to know anything about human-werewolf alliances? Her side of the family had wanted to break away from the hunters to live “normal” lives. Allison’s family had always been the them’s-fightin-words type, always ready to go into battle. No, this was all new information to her.

“Allison was the first choice because her bloodline was the more direct.”

“We’re asking your dad about this later,” Aisling hissed.

“But when Talia approached her mother, it was Gerard who refused point blank and threatened an attack. That left you as Talia’s last option. Your father married into your family but he was the one who pushed most strongly for peace. He gave his consent the moment Talia asked for it. You were assimilated into the pack the moment you could walk. There were so many you could have been paired with, but you chose Derek, heaven knows why.”

“So what? Is Deucalion after me because I didn’t pick him?”

“It would be much easier to deal with him were it so, but no. he’s using you because after talia paraded around her plan to forge an alliance through you and Derek with the Argents’ approval, Gerard arranged another meet with the packs. Everyone assumed it was to solidify the deal, but Gerard blinded Deucalion and killed many of the others in attendance, wounding more. Deucalion disappeared to recover and no one’s seen or heard from him since. Not until you started sleepwalking. Talia had her concerns even then, but you were so small no one believed you could really harm anyone. She did however ask your father for permission to keep you in our home for safety. No one else was meant to know you were there, and unfortunately that meant Kate had no idea who she had just set on fire.”

Aisling’s fingers twisted into a cage around the music box. Her eyes flitted down to peek at the charred swan. “I wasn’t your first choice and she didn’t keep me around because she actually liked me? Thanks for the confidence boosters,”

“Shut up,” Derek snarled so suddenly Aisling realized just how quiet he’d been. “My mother loved you. She loved you as much as she loved Laura and Cora and me. You were _pack_ , dammit.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered haltingly, and shrank herself in the seat. Her legs curled underneath her and her shoulders slumped forward to form her body into a tight ball. “Some pack member though, I ruined her alliance.”

“Get over yourselves already. Kate was a psychotic bitch and Deucalion’s an asshole. None of that was ever your guys’ faults.”

“Now, if you’ll allow me to continue, after the fire we all went our separate ways, but  obviously while we were recovering, Deucalion was just getting started because we’re both barely alive and he’s playing you like a puppet, just like he had when you were still a child. He’s using you to destroy what’s left of our family because you were meant to be the key to the alliance. Instead, gerard corrupted the peace talks into a bloodbath. Talia’s grand plan caused him blindness. What better way to punish her surviving kin than to pit her savior against us?”

“Please that sounds like material for a crappy TV daytime drama.”

“Tell that to Deucalion. On the grapevine he’s been called the Alpha of Alphas and the Destroyer of Worlds.”

Stiles silenced himself instantly.

“Someone needs to talk to Gerard. This Deucalion guy wouldn’t need to take any revenge if he hadn’t been determined to kill everything.”

“This is Gerard Argent, same guy who literally said the only good wolf was a dead wolf. Does he even know about _her_?” Erica eyed Aisling suspiciously out of the corner of her eye.

“To the best of my knowledge, no. She’d be dead already. Best case scenario, she would’ve been spared the whole cut in half deal.”

Aisling paled.

“Oh my god, Ash, don’t worry. He doesn’t have to know,” Allison spoke hurriedly, running both hands through her perfectly curled hair so much in the next ten seconds that they were reduced to little more than a rat’s nest of chestnut and chocolate strands. “Oh my god, you don’t need two people out to get you killed.”

“When did I ever say Deucalion wanted her killed?” Peter inquired smoothly, arching a brow at the group. “He wants _us_ killed, me and Derek, and probably his pack by extension. _Aisling_ he wants alive or he wouldn’t be so interested in playing with her.”

“Well, what about Scar, you know, from Lion King? Could be he just plays with his food,” Stiles hypothesized before actually thinking. The second he registered his own words, he did Aisling the favor of slapping himself in the face, muttering to himself.

An inhuman and not-lupine noise either came out of her throat, and she buried her face in one of the throw pillows. None of this was actually helping her. All right, so it was nice to finally get the whole story on Deucalion, but it didn’t make knowing he had free access to her head any less frightening. Sooner or later she was going to kill the last Hales, and the way Peter regarded her suggested he didn’t expect to survive it. His posture was too relaxed and the gleam in his eyes lacked the sharpness that came with the knowledge he would still come out on top.

The loveseat and the pillow in her arms only accepted her attempts at burying herself so much before she gave up the charade of being invisible.

“I’m not just saying this because I don’t like you, because I seriously don’t, but you should start thinking about martyring yourself or something,” Erica suggested, and surprisingly Aisling just nodded along with it.

Isaac tried to growl at the she-wolf, but a small hand on his stopped the sound in his throat.

“She’s right. If I run, he’d either force me to come back or I’d be going straight to him.”

“Please, no more martyrs or I swear I’m the only one left with a functioning brain in this whole town,” Lydia erupted out of nowhere. “Does no one see the obvious? Really?”

The pack stared at her blankly, to which she just groaned and dusted off her skirt as if being werewolves meant they actually shed like dogs before she began her own little spiel.

“Deucalion has to have something that allows him to bond with Aisling enough to get inside her head. Finding the source of that connection might allow us to find him first. Unless you actually think you’re doing fine on your own.” Lydia pursed her lips at Derek directly, looking impossibly full of herself. “Or you could use the connection between them as a two-way street.”

Peter’s eyes lit up. Aisling couldn’t stop the full-body shiver when the corners of his lips crept upwards. Her eyes darted toward Derek by the heater. She was not alone with her tensed muscles, it seemed.

“I’d love to do the honors.”

“No, no, I think I know what you’re planning, but you are so not getting into my head when I’ve got another werewolf in there already. Have you forgotten what happened the last time I had the two of you in there? I bit Derek!”

She felt the pulse of frustration in his blood before he could act on it. Her eyes slid shut, and she tightened her fingers around her little music box. The memory of the tune in the box and her favorite Christmas with the Hales bled across the only bond with a wolf that Aisling actually cared for. Forced to deliver the bite, forced to use herself to form an alliance, her life had been taken out of her control from the very beginning, but choosing Derek had been her own design.

Eyes open, she found all other eyes on her and the alpha now standing stock still in the center of the living room.

Stiles’s rear had slid half-off the stool, showing more restraint than Scott, who, at his side, had completely set himself off balance and fell to the floor. The clattering of the stool onto the hardwood broke the concentration of the pack but not of the engaged pair.

Honey flashed gold and held the luminescent shine until hazel bled into a swirling mix of burgundy and red wine.

Erica opened her mouth to interrupt, but both the alpha and omega swiftly turned their heads to raise their lips in synchronized snarls. She glared at the pair but wilted considerably against Boyd’s chest.

Aisling slowly released her ironclad grasp on the music box when the heat of the bond in her chest lessened to a more tolerable level. The energy in it had dropped since she took advantage of the alpha’s weakened control.

The anger hadn’t left his face by the time she released him completely from the twinkling chime of the music box, but it had fled the bunched muscles of his arms, now hanging relaxed at his sides.

“What just happened?” Isaac asked hesistantly.

“I think our darling Aisling just figured out what she can do with her little love bite,” Peter teased.

Her cheeks flushed a vibrant red as Stiles made a noise somewhere between a cough and a guffaw before he burst into actual, certifiable laughter so hard his stool joined Scott’s on the floor. The redness worsened when the whole pack joined in. Hell, even Boyd started chuckling behind his hand in spite of a chilling glare from Erica.

A rough, calloused palm on her hands brought her head snapping upwards, her hair falling messily around her face.

Derek’s eyes had regained their normal hazel hue now that she’d released her influence on him, but the touch of his hand still held a remnant of his earlier anger.

“Don’t do that again,” he spoke in even tones, but she heard the threat loud and clear, ducking her head again while he turned and retreated to the kitchen, returning the stools to their upright positions on his way.

Stiles and Scott gaped at him, eyes wide at the alpha’s behavior.

“I don’t think Derek understands what a benefit the bond between a mated pair can be,” Peter sighed, leaning back into his seat. “But, getting back to the matter at hand, if you truly can’t stand the idea of having me in your head, you’re going to have to accept _him_. Keep in mind he’s never _actually_ gone into anyone’s head before, and having him do it carries the potential of paralysis, even death, if it’s done incorrectly.”

Aisling leveled him with an indifferent stare. “Please do yourself a favor and shut up before I crush your throat. Just teach Derek how to do it so we can find Deucalion. I would like to be able to pretend I’m still normal by the time my parents come back for me.”

Isaac recoiled at the announcement. “Come back? What? You can’t be planning to leave again, you just can’t, not after all this. You’re supposed to be Derek’s mate.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not like parents were exactly excited when I was bitten. I’m sorry I can’t see them being exactly accepting that I’m supposed to be anyone’s mate, especially when it’s not even to a billionaire lawyer or corporate businessman, no offense to you!” Aisling shouted in the general direction of the kitchen.

She dipped her head to hide the smirk when she felt a blip of annoyance from Derek’s end of the bond. This really was odd, being able to feel him in real time, just _odd_.

“Right, so someone’s talking to Gerard,” Isaac said slowly, bringing up a hand to scratch at the side of his nose.

Aisling startled at the elbow digging into her side. Isaac just stared at her for another moment before sweeping his gaze over the rest of the pack. Most of them were faster to catch on than Aisling, but even though Scott pathetically failed to realize what just happened, Allison kindly offered to go with him. A heavy sigh escaped Aisling, just glad it wasn’t her. Unlike Allison, she had never been as talented at hiding her emotions; she preferred using her brute strength and sheer speed to get out of nasty circumstances rather than playing it cool and waiting for an opening. Even if Gerard didn’t know what she was, she knew he’d sense she was different and then he’d have her killed.

“Now that that’s settled, I think it’s time for some more pizza,” Stiles announced with a loud clap, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

Just like that the pack settled into a tense rhythm. For the first time in a long while Erica actually tolerated Aisling’s presence in the pack flat, even going as far as stepping back to give her first dibs on the Mediterranean.

On a full stomach, Aisling approached the door to Derek’s room with an arm stretched out ahead of her before she was even within a foot of the brass doorknob. While the others continued to discuss the next move to find Deucalion, Aisling had sat there, listening but never contributing. None of their plans did anything to put her at ease. At the center of it all, she would have to submit her mind to an open search by both alphas.

Peter adamantly held onto the idea that it was the only way to track the rabid monster. Derek would only be able to follow the connection to feel out Deucalion’s location as long as the other alpha controlled Aisling.

Then Stiles had to ask how they’d know when she had lost control.

Aisling couldn’t stand being in the room after that point. No matter the amount of sense in their ideas, disobeying her uncle to essentially live with the wolves her family routinely went out of the way to kill just didn’t seem like an option. She’d gotten a bad enough reaction the first time she stayed the night.

Her hand settled on the doorknob but held back from turning it.

This was just another mistake.

She forced herself to turn on her heel and retreat into the bathroom. Rustic and charming with bare brick walls and stainless steel fixtures, the confined space easily felt safer than the rest of the flat, all loud noises and bright lights. The water cooled the rising heat in her cheeks and rinsed out the first tears to well up in her eyes, caramel and swirling gold in the dim lighting.

A soft knock on the door forced her breath to catch in her throat.

“Come on. Out,” Derek’s voice was muffled through the door. “Let me drive you back if you’re so worried.”

How sweet.

“I just need a minute,” she tried to say with a small measure of confidence, but her voice cracked and failed her near the end.

Though she hadn’t locked the door, she didn’t bother to do it now that the doorknob started to turn. Not as though there would have been a point; Derek had enough control over his strength to force the door open even if she tried. Her anxiety leaked across the bond, but all the methodic breathing exercises in the world couldn’t school her heartbeat back down.

His hazel eyes roamed over her hunched figure, pressed against the shower door to put some distance between them. Her hands shook in spite of being wrapped around her middle. Slowly as if a quick movement would send her fleeing through the miniscule second-story window above the shower, he came closer until he could pull her hands away, using his grasp on her wrists to draw her into his chest. For someone so uncannily irritated all the time, he sure gave her the most contentment she’d ever felt in her life, even when Isaac had taken her pain. It had never been quite as euphoric or as soothing as this.

Her whole body relaxed against his, until he deemed her well enough to move on her own, gently leading her by her fingertips clasped featherlight around the belt lop on his right hip. He threw her an exasperated glance over his shoulder as he walked but did nothing to dislodge her delicate hold.

All conversation stopped when Aisling brought her eyes upwards from the floorboards, finding herself at the doorway out of the flat.

“I’m taking her home.”

“Come on, Lydia. We might as well go too.” Allison started to gather her things together, randomly placed on available counter space across the flat, until more or less everything had found its way back into her purse. “What? My dad has an ash line around the house. How did you think you were going to get in?”

Derek held back a growl, but the effort of it shuddered in his lungs. Aisling felt it, she was pressed so close against his back. Hurriedly she stepped back a pace, keeping a finger hooked around the belt loop, and tried not to let the anxiety of the separation filter through their connection. God, how she wanted this to end so she could stop tiptoeing around him.

Allison drove ahead of them, Lydia in the passenger seat with her, and thankfully she didn’t send a text demanding to know what possessed her and Derek to stop caravanning and turn onto a different side street before they even made it halfway back. He made no attempt to explain himself either.

Aside from the lights on the dash, the car was a dark as the world outside the windows.

The baby hair around her forehead made barely audible scratchy noises as her head rubbed against the window. Heavy lidded it was a wonder she hadn’t fallen asleep already. They had to have been driving for at least fifteen minutes by now. They should’ve already passed the house with the six different palms in the front lawn and entered her neighborhood, but the only shapes she could make out at their speed in the poor light of the waxing moon were trees and more trees.

She turned to face him, but his eyes were glued to the road. She could only say the same thing about the one hand still on the wheel, knuckles white as bone.

“I don’t mean to question your ability to navigate, but this is not the way to my house,” she mumbled, her words slurring together into a wide-mouthed yawn. “Fuck, sorry.”

He huffed and shifted against the seat, leather on leather, the fabric squeaked a shade too loudly to _not_ laugh at.

“Shut up.” His voice was light though and held no malice. “And I know where I’m going. Just go back to sleep.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, staying the night with you that time or staying the night with you this time not even under a roof, a _house_ roof, I mean,” Aisling complained, but only half-heartedly.

The exhaustion ate at the last shreds of her resolve to get home. Her legs curled up to her chest though she had to lean the chair back to get comfortable enough to sleep. The rings on the necklace chain chimed against each other as the road conditions became progressively worse so she wrapped a hand around the jewelry, tucking it between the sweater and her shirt underneath, tucking herself right back to sleep. Her last thoughts wondered how anyone with such a nice car, even a stupid two-door, through back roads like these, and then nothing.

A pair of well-defined arms lifted her out of the passenger seat as easily as a newborn babe, hitching her body higher until her chin rested on his shoulder, the same one she’d bitten. Honey-hued eyes opened for a fraction of a second, fingers inching up the open leather jacket until they could trace over the pale scar of the bite, before sleep reclaimed her.

Moisture seeped into the fabric of her sweater, but only for a moment before she let herself be hoisted bodily over strong shoulders. The position was awkward and got worse when hands pushed her rear upwards and onto some ledge behind her. From there, the hands had to move quickly to lower her upper body back against the ledge without dropping her head against what felt like cold but tough rocks. She shivered and rolled into a ball to decrease the chill.

Like the dampness in her clothes, the cold only lasted a moment before she found herself enshrouded completely in a blanket of warmth, not even figuratively but a literal blanket.

She had to force her eyes to stay open long enough to get a sense of her surroundings and was glad she managed the effort.

Derek’s hair was ruffled into random spikes from the effort of carrying her and the massive quilted monstrosity over a sizable distance judging from the vague outline of his car at the foot of the gently sloping but heavily boulder-riddled hill. On that hill grew a tree, a singularly massive one that she guessed had been specifically managed to produce a platform in the center of the splitting branches, the resulting thick limbs curving up and around overhead into a roof of its own design. Out to her side the night was dark as ever but the sky studded with constellations and myriad stars invisible in the city.

“Sleep. I’ll let Argent know you’re safe.”

She hummed and huddled farther into the tree to give him enough space to lie down beside her. The serenity of the tree house rejuvenated her. Already her mind felt clearer, though still foggy with fatigue. Derek had to be right. This place was safe, in spite of its relative exposure to the elements. Something deep within the tree gave her comfort, and her eyes closed for the final time that night, remaining open just long enough to see Derek’s hand creep within an inch of hers, still wrapped around the ornaments around her neck. Still, the heat of his fingertips lasted long into her dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I printed some shirts today for my dad's running group, super cute stuff. Makin' that money. Maybe I'll be able to afford a cage for my rats. Coulson and Clint need to stop trying to squeeze through the bars. I can't get to the store til Wednesday to check if I can settle for chicken wire for the time being.


	11. Running Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while, yeah? I ended up just writing bullshit for the wordcount. finished nanowrimo on track but it's all BS and not in the right order.
> 
> back to slow going from here on out

 Turkey is all Aisling can smell right now and she hates it. She loathes the scent permeating every corner of the house with every last fiber of her being. One more whiff of the aromatic carcass and she wouldn’t be held responsible for her actions.

Considering the ratio of nights spent at home to nights spent away, she had gotten away pretty lightly. Chris no longer held her trapped in the home, Finstock allowed her back onto the field with strict directions to make sure no one pulled a muscle pre-season, and Sheriff Stilinski moved her from sorting files to helping him on his current work. Sure, his cases nowadays meant for more lying than she was strictly comfortable with, but he gave her what information and insight Stiles couldn’t glean just from stolen glances and sneaking photographs of documents scattered across the kitchen table.

No mentions of werewolves or anyone going by the name of Deucalion, but that was to be expected. More cattle were cropping up as completely savaged carcasses, and hunters came back from the woods reporting the deer had all gone away. Hunting had _just_ opened up in the reserve too.

Thanks to Aisling’s work at the station, she heard the news first.

Which explained why the pack ended up in the forest in the first place, running along the edge of Hale pack territory. Historically at least because Derek hadn’t exactly maintained the boundaries all that well. It helped that no other packs had come through since the fire to lay claim to the vacant space, but still, there was room for improvement.

The disappearance of the deer meant more for the Hales than it did for anyone else, and the tightness of their lips didn’t exactly help with their inane decision to wake everyone up before sunrise for a little investigation of their own. Something about needing to defend the territory before someone else moved in.

Aisling stomped through the thick leaf litter, kicking at stray rocks and branches rather than stepping over them. She just shrugged when Stiles glared in her direction, fully decked out in hunting gear she was fairly certain he bought just for the occasion. A price tag peeked out over the edge of the popped collar of the heavy camo jacket.

“How are we supposed to track anything with you trudging along like that?”

“There’s nothing _to_ track according to your dad’s sources,” she huffed back, trudging off away from the rest of the group.

Stiles insisted on moving forward in a line in a wide sweep outside the perimeter to flush everything ahead of them. He meant to make sure that nothing got around and past them, but Aisling doubted anything worth finding was left in the entire forest. None of the other wolves wanted to say it, but their progress had been limited to old deer trails so far and none used within the last week. Each of them lacked the experience and knowledge necessary to actually track wild animals beyond the use of their own senses, and Allison made a point of reminding them of their uselessness.

She, Lydia, and Erica had all separately decided that heeled boots to be appropriate footwear for their little mountain excursion. For all Aisling’s stomping around she still managed to produce less noise than her three compatriots. She might have complained about their choice in attire, but surprisingly not a one of them faltered once over the awkward terrain. At most, Lydia huffed out a breath when she stepped down into a particularly rotten log. To be fair, the thing was half hidden under fallen leaves.

But they just weren’t making any real progress. The hunters had made it plain that something had scared off the all the game from the reserve.

With the way things were back in the Argent household though, Aisling preferred the crisp air toying with what few leaves still clung to the branches twisting overhead. The pleasant sound forced all other thoughts from her mind. She hated the overly rich, thick meat scent of the turkey in the kitchen and the tension every time she caught herself in a room with Uncle Chris. He hadn’t tried to bring up the fact that she continued spending time with Derek against his wishes, but he had admitted in passing before he left for work that she couldn’t be mistaken for Death today.

She smiled for a second before she could resent him for claiming she’d actually looked like Death before. It beat the idea of having to isolate herself from Derek again, because that always turned out for the best. None of the nights she’d spent with him resulted in the nightmares that plagued her early into her return to Beacon Hills, and her mind stayed more or less under her own control.

Peter even started to teach Derek the fundamentals of getting into a person’s head. He wanted to use Aisling as a demonstration dummy, but that plan went out the window same time he did. After that, they’d all had to grow accustomed to more draftiness in the flat until Derek could get the funds together to repair the damn thing. For the time being, Stiles covered the gaping hole with a garbage page and tape, not well, but Aisling didn’t live there so she didn’t particularly care for how noisy his solution proved to be. Hearing it secondhand from Isaac was adorably unfortunate. Hearing it thirdhand from Scott from Isaac was just strange. Melissa McCall had to have a heart of solid gold of the finest quality to let the poor kid crash on the couch.

Then Aisling found out that Scott’s mom already knew about werewolves. After that her admiration for the woman she’d never met expanded tenfold. Her own mother tried to brainwash the wolf out of her if it meant avoiding the _monthlies_. Strange how the same news could produce such drastic reactions. Stranger still that the woman who’d never known werewolves existed was the one to embrace it.

Scott practically skipped through the forest, he was so upbeat. Every step was light with a spring to it. Isaac had set himself up to his right, but he was all nerves by comparison.

Aisling bit her lip and forced one foot in front of the other. Stiles had a hunch that the deer must’ve fled when Deucalion moved in. They’d all volunteered to come out and search the woods, something about there being strength in numbers in case they managed to find him. The unspoken reason was so they’d have enough people to stop her if Deucalion discovered them first.

They’d volunteered for this though.

Whatever happened, happened. And none of it would be her fault.

* * *

_“Just run! Don’t turn around, whatever you do. If I die from picking you up, I am going to haunt your ass to kingdom come.”  
_

_“I’m going as fast I can, dammit. I thought I told you to get out.”_

_“You know me. Not so keen on the following orders deal.”_

_He should’ve expected as much._

_Behind them a heavy set figure galloped through the thick grove, lunging ahead faster and faster with every powerful leap over the shallow dips across the leaf littered landscape. A cloud of cherry red and lemon yellow rose into the air under the dull beating of those paws and the raking of the damp earth by tough claws. Its breath misted out around its mouth, the beast moving too quickly for it to hold its shape much longer than the initial exhale. Panting as much as they were, it at least never appeared to slow in spite of the obstacles in its meandering path._

* * *

“Are you okay, Ash? That’s the second tree you’ve run into in the last twenty minutes.”

“Seventh in the last hour!” one of the others shouted farther along the line.

Her brows knit together. Seven trees? She ought to have remembered running into a tree, especially the ones in this part of the wood. Older, they were also considerably thicker. Her hands appeared white as bone against the moss and rain dampened bark of the tree she found herself staring down. She patted the rough face and muttered a weak apology before stepping around it to rejoin the line.

Her eyes stuck focused on the group to avoid the wary looks from the pack.

Strange how time tended to pass more quickly when your memory decides to fail you.

The bark felt familiar under her fingertips. The spongy Granny Smith green moss tickled her fingers just the same. The splotches of white against darker bits resembled those of the last tree she stopped before, but everything about Allison’s hands, balled into little fists at her sides, screamed that it was, in fact, a different tree.

That makes eight.

On her wrist the watch must’ve been lying to her too. They must have been walking for hours already, but according to the timepiece only one had passed them by. On the bright side, that meant they had covered a lot of ground and had the potential to cover much more before they called it a day, but she didn’t look forward to all the trees she might suffer through in that time.

“Ash!”

She blinked her eyes open, half expecting to find another tree, half expecting something else she couldn’t really guess at, but it was definitely not a faceful of leaves coupled with a mouthful of dirt. All gentle hands and mothering touches, Allison rolled her onto her back while Lydia made damn sure no one came within four feet of her, something about “breathing space,” but the liquid in her ears muffled everything beyond that. She didn’t even think that sort of thing even existed anymore, although with all the blasted smartphones, you could do most things without having to intrude on even a twenty-foot radius breathing space. Which was a good thing if you were the sort to take photos of people and post them online without their knowing. Which Aisling most certainly did not do.

She preferred taking photos of their pets.

A chuckle that looked suspiciously like a cough wracked her body.

That lady in the tweed jacket over the strangest lime green mohair sweater took second every time she thought about the ridiculously elegant Afghan hound trailing along at her side, sleek hair brushed just the right way to not interfere with its own “tweed”-patterned doggy sweater, complete with black velvet lapels and Ailsing could’ve sworn she saw the matching lime green square of a handkerchief peeking out of a breast pocket. _A breast pocket_.

“Ash.”

The sound of her name washed over her like the caress of a wave, only warmer.

Beaches sucked. Always too cold. Always too windy. No, Aisling did not care for them. Still, they had their benefits, mostly in the form of the little shops along the pier, _enclosed_ shops. The churro booth down in Santa Monica had been to die for. Caramel dip had been a novelty then and a treasure now.

Oh, god, fucking caramel. If Aisling had to have a weakness, that was it.

Few people could beat her in a caramel-eating contest if that were a thing. Really, that should be a thing. She would make it a thing before she died. Yes, that was Priority Numbero Uno now.

She nodded her head confidently. Allison’s face swam in her vision. She opened her mouth to tell her about the caramel carnival she planned to start in Beacon Hills, but she stopped before she could even get a word out. Allison would just laugh at her. Damn, chocolate die-hards. Plus she pronounced caramel funny. Aisling would have to make sure Allison wasn’t invited to the carnival. Scott could come , but only if he promised not to sneak her in.

“She needs to get to a hospital.”

That had to be Lydia.

That’s why she thought of the lady with the Afghan hound.

Lime green woolen jacket. It looked so warm right about now. She could use warm.

Grabby hands rose from her sides, the leaves rustling as they slipped off her jacket sleeves back to their friends.

“Oh, no, she is not getting my jacket. Can’t you give her yours?”

“Isn’t it bad if she’s cold? Like hypothermia-bad?” Isaac. She grinned and tried to search for his face in the blur of colors gathered around her. She expected to spot his blonde curls easiest out of all of them, but the sunlight behind and around and above them made it impossible for her to see anything through her eyelids.

“She’s not even wet. Besides, she’s a werewolf. She couldn’t get hypothermia if she wanted to.” Boyd. Her upside down frown righted itself.

“You’d be surprised.” _Peter_.

Who even invited him?

“You know, this might actually be a good time to try to get into her head. Any barriers or resistance she might have put up, she’s beyond the point of that now.” Still Peter.

The hands that rose for the promise of a warm coat now dropped over her ears, though her motor control failed her then. Her hands smacked her right on her cheeks before she could feel her way around to cover her ears as if ignoring them would stop the conversation from happening.

Allison tugged at her sleeve to get her attention, and though Aisling couldn’t separate the real Allison from her seven doppelgangers, one of them and then another and then another one after that would start the sentence and leave it to get seamlessly picked up by another. It was madness just trying to keep track of who was talking.

“Allisons,” she groaned without uncovering her ears, “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

The brunette stared at her long and hard until Aisling’s head dropped back against the leaves.

Both girls’ breathing quickened until the time between each breath turned the scattered puffs of smoke escaping the fallen wolf’s chapped lips into a consistent plume.

“Scott, call your mom,” Allison barked, her body looming over her cousin’s, hands patting both cheeks to keep the honey hued eyes on hers.

“What do I tell her? What’s wrong with her?”

“Shortness of breath, loss of motor control, loss of visual acuity, hallucinations, lapse in consciousness, really, Scott, take your pick,” Peter hissed scathingly.

Finally the one scent Aisling had wanted to catch all morning came close enough she could feel the earth between her bare toes.

“Forget calling the hospital.”

No, no, no. Aisling whined, pushing her forehead up against Allison’s hand. God, she had clammy palms. Oh, wait, that was her sweat. Nevermind.

But no. This was all wrong. He should never sound that stressed. He wasn’t ever supposed to be this scared. He was an alpha, her alpha. He couldn’t be scared _of her_.

She had to show him it was okay, that she was okay. Her body surged upwards, but immediately her limbs felt heavier. Blurs of color masking the red of her sweater told her that the bodies of the other wolves now held her against the tangle of roots and the mess of leaves.

She lashed out tooth and nail to get them off, but with her very limbs conspiring against her, each strike was something of a triumph. All the effort in the world paled comparison to the combined weight of the pack on her.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay,” she whispered to herself. Under the grunts and huffs of air, mostly from Isaac and Boyd who threw themselves across her legs, her voice lost itself to the noise.

Stronger, she repeated the mantra. Then for a third time. Then a fourth.

On her fifth, something happened.

Peter fled first, taking to higher ground back the way they came, peeling off in the opposite direction from Beacon Hills.

What stood with renewed energy and a newfound strength and determination that was not wholly her own wore Aisling’s skin, but the resemblance stopped there. It heaved itself up away from the ground with such force that Allison and Scott were sent tumbling to her left and Stiles, Erica and Lydia to her right. Isaac and Boyd ended up caught underfoot more or less, with their throats literally caught underhand.

She cocked her head to the side, peering down at the flustered face of the youngest wolf among them. Bright eyes glittering with nervousness and the beginnings of tears, they contrasted sharply against the vivid lemon yellow eyes of the wolf beside him so filled with wrath. Her fingers curled more tightly around the soft tissue, the needle-sharp points just pricking skin.

The blonde wolf stilled immediately.

Her hand over his throat withdrew first, leaving the older one longer to stew in his rage as the blonde scrambled to his feet, darting for the fallen forms of his friends, still slumped against tree trunks and over rocks or logs. She freed him too, but the second he had the freedom to move even an inch, he swung an arm round to clock her on the side of the head. Or at least he tried to.

She threw all her body weight into her two hands, pressing his arm so suddenly against the ground and a thick branch placed just so conveniently that the bone snapped with such a loud crack that it filled the air and brought a smile to her face.

Howling in a mix of pain and rage, he leapt to his feet, snapped the bone back into place, and struck at her with a sound swing of his leg. Only that proved to be a bust. She caught the leg before it could make proper contact with her body. He only managed to send her skidding to the side at least two feet from her original position, but that little victory turned on its head once he realized his leg was still in her grasp.

She didn’t give him a second more before she lunged to the side and pressed her body. Another snap and the mighty Boyd collapsed onto the leaves, his last useful hand grappling for purchase against the slippery scarlet-stained denim.

“Ash.”

Plaintive and pleading, a voice called out to her, weak as she had been only moments before. Such weakness was pitiful.

As she turned her body to the source, a savage growl rumbled through her chest, intensifying the sound.

She received one in return.

Her mate had placed himself between her and the fallen friends, twin red orbs glowing brightly even in the high daylight.

“Get them out of here. Now,” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth, his lips never losing the snarl.

Isaac nodded quickly, but doing as he was told was more difficult than he originally thought. In spite of the fear that nearly dampened his pants as much as it had dampened his spirits, he’d gotten off luckier than his friends. Scott and Erica took less time to come around once he got them onto their backs, but neither one could get a good enough hold on their bearings to stand just yet. Worse, Stiles and Lydia still hadn’t regained consciousness. Allison had gotten onto her feet, but she wouldn’t be going anywhere on them for a while thanks to the immense swelling around her ankle. Turns out the heels really didn’t work in this terrain when someone decides to chuck you into the air. At least Boyd would heal himself given the time, but no one was in a condition to help poor Isaac evacuate the pack before Alpha Derek fought Omega-controlled-by-an-alpha Aisling.

They’d all gotten bad enough injuries fighting her at full strength the first time, and while the shock of her first transformation had worn off by now, they’d be facing the Alpha piloting her too.

“Come on, Stiles, we gotta get out of here. You gotta wake up,” he shouted at the Sheriff’s son, shifting him into an upright position against the tree Allison was already leaning against.

His eyes opened first as only a small crack, fluttering open and closed while his head bobbed from the effort of holding the weight evenly on his shoulders. Then the brown doe eyes fell on the alpha and omega only feet from him. Aisling appeared every bit the stereotypical werewolf from the hunched back, standing on the balls of her feet, to the clawed hands, one curled and held off to the side for a quick swipe, the other balancing her weight in the uniquely lycanthropic position. Derek remained fairly human aside from the obvious factors, but the black hair thickening on his arms and around his face pushed him father and farther away from his humanity. In spite of the pair of them being armed to the teeth, Stiles felt a wee bit safer having Derek between him and the omega.

Isaac didn’t seem to think so. He kept pestering Stiles for his attention and then his help getting Lydia and Erica back onto their feet.

On the ground still a ways off Boyd groaned at the sting of his bone knitting itself together and the skin reforming over his wounds. He only needed a few more minutes before he would be of any use to Isaac’s evacuation plan, but those minutes Derek would have to fight for.

“Where’d Peter go,” Stiles slurred, both hands braced on Isaac’s shoulders when he struggled to right himself.

“He ran.”

“Figures.”

“You good? We still need to get them.” Isaac jerked his head in the vague direction of Stiles’ previous love interest and Boyd’s current one.

He just nodded and did his best to hide the effects of the stabbing pain in his hip as they slipped around the dueling pair and further down the small incline.

A thin ring of scarlet bloomed around the iris of Aisling’s left eye, and Derek snapped his jaws loudly. The ring grew into a thick border. He lowered his shoulders and assumed a similar stance to hers, muscling rippling with every minute adjustment.

She didn’t like that he copied her, tossing her head and fidgeting in her position, hips swaying as she rocked her weight from one foot to the other.

All he needed was to catch her off balance and he could get his claws into her neck, but the savagery he’d faced the first time would make things difficult. Peter’s teachings only went so far without having anyone to practice on, which was not for a lack of volunteers. Isaac, for hating the technique when Peter used it on him, actually trusted Derek and wanted Aisling to consider herself pack badly enough to offer his own mind. Something about invading anyone’s privacy like that ruled it out as an option, last resort use only.

The viridian hue that now consumed both eyes in their entirety left him with only one option.

Just one hair off to the side and he could paralyze or kill her. She would fight it; the alpha in her head would fight it.

But this was the opening they needed. Enter the connection and they could find Deucalion.

Too bad that too was easier said than done.

Only Boyd had been left behind nearest to Derek. The alpha’s priority went from simply pinning the omega to drawing her away from his pack.

Unfortunately, the message that lingered even after her departure from the city made that nigh impossible.

_The pack divides, the pack dies._

In the moment it took him to lunge for her, she dove underneath his legs and charged on all fours for Boyd, hastily clawing his way across the leafy floor, anything to delay her advance. She got as close as shredding the denim from his trailing leg before Derek caught her by the back of the throat and threw her an easy twenty feet away from them, her body tumbling and rolling through the leaves until she finally came to a stop. Her claws left a series of deep gauges in the dirt and a few on the trees on either side of the scarred earth.

She came at him again, legs pushing back against the ground with so much strength it threw large clumps into the air behind her. Derek dug in his heels and raced towards her, crashing into her with all his weight. He expected to be able to push her back at least a small distance due to her smaller frame. He had not expected to feel her fangs in the arm he raised to shield his face (and hopefully nail hers with his elbow). A vigorous shake of her head tore the skin to ribbons, but the pain couldn’t compare to the distance _he’d_ lost in the collision.

So he bit her in return, sinking his fangs into the tender flesh of her swan-like neck where it joined her shoulder. However Deucalion managed to hold her so finely under his control fell to pieces in that bite. She practically melted in his grasp, arms falling limp at her sides and knees buckling underneath her. The opportunity to use the connection against Deucalion had finally presented itself.

Canines still locked against the rhythmic thrumming of the vein just beneath his lips, she startled only minutely when he brought up a hand to her face. Up close he could see the regular warm gold seeping back into the scarlet, the widening of her pupils as he brushed back her hair and swept the leaf-ridden curls away from the back of her neck. She blinked a couple of times, slowly like a child about to drift off to sleep.

Only at the last moment with his claws already fixed deep in the sensitive tissue did the Alpha flood her senses again. Both of her hands jolted upwards to strangle him, but one more push and he was in. Her hands fell slack against his chest, and they both collapsed in the haze of energy streaming between them.

Everything moved so quickly and he couldn’t see anything beyond what was immediately in front of him. The edges of his vision blurred together, but he saw the same face his uncle had, smirking back at him as if congratulating him for getting this far.

He felt deeper into the connection, but having experience limited to theory gave him little knowledge of how to press on.

In that vein Derek hadn’t prepared himself for the sudden blinding pain blossoming behind his eyes. He couldn’t seem to release Aisling fast enough.

His hand was stuck fast like a mammoth in a tar pit. He felt first-hand the strength and mockery behind the order Deucalion gave her before he felt the strike against his chest.

Crimson splashed against scarlet and gold. Their tie severed as badly as his flesh, he stumbled backwards, feet sliding against blood-slickened rocks until he mimicked Boyd’s sprawled condition to a T.

Her upper body dropped to the ground, leaves crunching underneath her palms. She crept forward with all the caution and sinuous movements of a snake advancing through the undergrowth. The growling in her throat never ceased even after she completed her first circle around his vulnerable form.

The wound on his chest would heal, but only if she allowed it to.

Before he could push himself up and back onto his feet, she covered his body with hers, knees supporting her weight on either side of his hips. Delicate touches danced over his racing pulse, the skin of his throat fluttering with the rush of blood. Clawed raked his scalp, fingers combing through thick black hair. A yank back and he gulped. Throat exposed, she didn’t hesitate to latch her fangs into the fragile flesh. He shut his eyes against the pain, but she withdrew after drawing the first drops of blood. He hardly felt the scrape of her fangs.

He did however feel it when one hand trailed down his chest and howled when she dug her claws into the gaping wound, inch by inch slowly forcing it wider.

Aisling would have continued to force the gash open if not for whatever divine power suddenly relieved Derek of the weight on his chest.

Let it never again be said that Stiles was scrawny.


	12. ETD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a long while hasn't it? finals week, then christmas holidays, and i spent a good portion of it in a wrist brace for "carpal tunnel" (i still need to get the diagnosis confirmed).
> 
> but we're here now and hopefully you all still are just as pumped for me to get this over with as i am. so read on.
> 
> apologies because it's going to go very slowly from here on out.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Please, Isaac, sweetie, don’t make this any harder for us than it already is. You’ve seen her. You know what she’s capable of. Is it really that far-fetched that I want to be somewhere safer?” Erica patted his cheek affectionately. He grinned for the span of a heartbeat before the sharp pinch forced his hands to push her away. She cackled, actually _cackled_ , though the dimples were decidedly absent from her face.

“But it’s not her fault. Deucalion made her do it.”

That was _always_ the case. Erica shook her head furiously, curls bouncing, as she flounced around the stripped down mattress to gather up what looked like unpaired socks or more intimate underwear than Isaac could handle at the moment.

Boyd spoke on her behalf, voicing her thoughts for her.

“She’s had him in her head since she was a kid. If she hasn’t learned some sort of control since then, I don’t see her learning now. We’ve put ourselves on the line, and she would’ve killed me if Derek hadn’t been there to protect us. And Erica, she wouldn’t have made it out if you hadn’t been able to wake everyone up. She’s dangerous, Isaac. We’re getting out, and maybe you should too.”

“No, no, I can’t.” Isaac pouted, backing away slowly. “She just needs a little more time.”

Erica tossed more clothes into the ratty maroon suitcase on the mattress and shrugged. Different patterns of shirts poked out around the edges and through the zippers, but the case remained closed. Isaac doubted it would open again the way it was packed.

Muscles bunching as he wrapped his arms around Erica’s waist, Boyd stepped up behind her to press a kiss to the sun-kissed skin of her neck through her dirty blonde locks, eyes still tracking Isaac in the doorway.

“She trusts you more than any of us, and you want to keep that. I get it, but come on, man. One day Derek won’t be able to stop her on his own, Stiles is going to get himself killed, and the Sheriff is going to want answers. Do you really want to be around for that?”

“ _It’s not going to come to that,_ ” he snarled, eyes flashing golden. When his claws pricked his palms, he forced his lungs to expand and relax until the razor-sharp points receded. “I want to help them; I want to help her. She’s not a monster.”

“Funny. That’s exactly what we said when we received the bite.”

Of course, they’d all been basically raised with the children’s stories and the stigmas against werewolves, and they’d all done their best to prove themselves wrong. Only Scott really had to prove it to someone besides himself, but they all started out with the same goal of self-control, the exact sort of thing that Aisling hadn’t been capable of for a long time. The way they were talking, Erica and Boyd didn’t believe she’d ever be capable of it again.

Erica tossed her head and patting Boyd’s hands, gently removed herself from his grasp to continue packing in the cramped space.

They’d been sharing the room for ages now, and even though Isaac never stepped inside, Boyd’s sheer size still made him feel he was suffocating. In the time they’d essentially lived together, Erica made her passion for collecting knick knacks clear. Every inch of shelf space was cluttered with little trinkets from her various weekend excursions out of town. For someone who rarely went farther than 50 miles from Beacon Hills, she’d managed to create a substantial collection. Only now her tiny treasures were tucked away in neat little packages of folded newspaper. Not even today’s paper, he noticed. She must have been setting them aside for a while now. The thought made her leaving that much worse.

Boyd crushed Isaac’s hand in the manliest of manly handshakes and gave him a one-second warning before he drew the younger male into a one-armed hug that was infinitely manlier if that meant it was infinitely more painful. He didn’t think he’d ever get the feeling back into his ribs.

“Feel free to give us a call once this whole deal’s straightened out, all right? Not like we want to be gone forever.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded. His voice was faint, and he shuffled back from the doorway. His socked feet slid noiselessly atop the hardwood, but his jeans scraped against each other between his knees. He scratched the back of his head, eyes darting between the couple and the empty living room. “I’ll let Derek know you’re leaving then.”

“Better not. I don’t think he’d appreciate the news.”

Isaac chewed the inside of his mouth, but he had to agree. Being the bearer of bad news couldn’t end well for him either. Besides, they’d need all the time they could get to put some distance between themselves and their Alpha. The pack scent had to be faint by the time they broke out of Beacon Hills or they risked being associated to the very pack the mysterious Alpha was so determined to destroy.

Instead he just trudged back through the expansive flat, threw himself across the couch, and withdrew his phone from his pocket. Flicking through the pages of apps, he settled on checking through his messages.

Aisling hadn’t been around in a while, but considering how she was back to walking on eggshells with Erica, Isaac couldn’t hold it against her. She held herself responsible for the damage she’d caused, in spite of not remembering it. Apparently she’d run down Derek and Stiles for more than a mile before Peter dropped down out of nowhere and drove a hunting knife into her back. Then he strangled her. After that, she regained consciousness just before she lost it again to asphyxiation. According to Allison, she’d recovered since then, and following Stiles’ pestering Coach Finstock, she’d been asked by the principal to take another leave of absence. They were never going to get a championship at his point.

* * *

Scott shifted Allison’s weight on his lap, smiling stupidly when she glanced down at him in the hopes of appeasing her. He counted it as a win when she didn’t do more than lean more of her weight forward onto her booted feet. His thighs thanked her. For someone so slight, she was packed with lean muscle.

And he really shouldn’t be considering the merits of his girlfriend when things had gotten so bad Derek called a full pack meeting with notable exceptions.

Isaac let everyone know a couple of days earlier what went down, and they’d all been on alert since then, even Peter. Being two members down dropped their collective strength more than a few notches.

After what happened with Aisling in the forest, his senses had been jacked up to the point where he couldn’t sleep through the night. Derek got off easy according to him. Something about stabbing her in the back threw him for a loop. He’d been tracking her through his own creator’s connection, but he’d needed to get into her head to force Deucalion out. Everything she’d felt surged back into him, and for once, Scott found himself admiring their Alpha for having the strength of mind to keep the knife in long enough to do it.

Not surprisingly, Aisling hadn’t been the same either.

He’d just assumed that she’d gone through the same mental whirlwind and came up an inch shy of sanity, but it would pass as it always had. She’d find her way back to the pack, to Derek, and they got get on with life. She had a home now, people she could call friends, an _anchor,_ for the first time. She had to come back.

But she stayed away. The Sheriff had been calling her every few hours while the station was still quiet, but got nothing in return. Finstock gave up and, throwing a fit loud as a bull in a china shop, told the principal he didn’t need an assistant coach and that Aisling could, quite colorfully, find a new home for her medals and trophies. Allison decided to play innocent and kept absolutely silent on the issue, though he should’ve known that was a bad sign.

Now this. Everyone left had packed into the flat far away from the chill seeping in through the single-pane windows, including Peter, who still looked pale as a death in spite of the steaming mug of coffee in his hands.

“They never made it out of Beacon Hills,” Scott finally tuned in to what Derek was saying. “Someone must have caught them and taken them captive, most likely Deucalion. We don’t know what he wants with them, but it’s still early. If we can find him, they might still be alive.”

“ _Might_?” Stiles gulped.

Derek’s face would’ve fallen if it hadn’t already been set in such a deep scowl already.

“A little optimism would be nice right now. They’re fine. Like Mr. Dead Wolf said before, Deucalion wants to kill you two, not your pack. They have to be alive. He’s going to use them against you like he’s been using Aisling,” Lydia pointed out, admiring the glossy cherry red of her nails. The bright pop of color matched perfectly with today’s lipstick.

“Speaking of Aisling, has anyone told her yet,” Isaac drawled from the floor. He’d decided early on in the night that the established pairs should get the seats and Peter looked too damn sickly to be worth the risk of it catching. He would have said couple, but Lydia was still very much on the track of childhood friend with Stiles. That much was obvious, but that still left him without the chair buddy Aisling used to be.

Derek’s expression darkened.

“No, not yet.”

For a moment everyone just sat on their various seats around the room, looking down at their hands and twiddling their thumbs, until Allison spoke up. Scott could feel her limbs shaking although she’d returned the majority of her weight back to his thighs at least fifteen minutes ago. He rubbed her upper arms to ease the chill, but the trembles continued.

In a quiet voice, she said, “She already knows. She’s been out, running the perimeter by herself. She must have found something because she hasn’t come home in two days.”

Well, that explained why no one could reach her. Even if she’d taken a phone with her, it would’ve been dead by now. If she’d taken Stiles’ phone, it would’ve died before she made it into the trees.

“What does your dad know about this?”

“Not much, but he’s still trying to keep the family out of this whole thing. He has eyes out on the woods at night and just after dawn, but no one’s seen anything. She just . . . disappeared.”

Isaac’s eyes widened like saucers. “You don’t think she’s . . .”

“She’s gone, Isaac. I don’t know anything else.”

Lydia blinked. Why was she apologizing to Isaac? As thoroughly destroyed as Isaac looked, Derek was worse. In the far corner of the room, shoulders hunched, knuckles white cording through his hair, he looked like a boy being told his dog had just been hit by a car.

Then something snapped her free of her thoughts.

In the loveseat closest to the window, Stiles winced after Lydia swatted him in the face for smacking her on the side of the head. It was an accident, in his defense. He just wanted to run his hands through his hair, or over it, buzz cuts, you know. The motion had been genuinely automatic and the contact totally unintentional.

“So what do we do? We can’t afford to be three members down, especially not when one of them still has a direct link to Deucalion. She could be anywhere.”

Derek answered first, lips drawn tight against his teeth. He wrapped his arms around himself, nails digging into the flesh beneath the flimsy fabric of his shirt. A second more of this tension and he might actually tear through it with human hands. “ _I know_. Now do you have any bright ideas, Stiles, hm? Because I could really go for one right about now instead of constantly being told the obvious.”

“Whoa, there, buddy. No need to go all wolfy on me.”

He hadn’t even noticed the shift. It had been such a long time since he’d lost control like that. It didn’t bode well. None of this did.

“She’s your mate. Isn’t there something you can do to, I don’t know, feel her out? Come on, Peter, help a guy out here?”

“No, no, I’d rather not interrupt the show.” Peter kicked his feet up onto the coffee table. As a unit, the pack shifted minutely to bear down at the wolf with savage glares. “Besides, you have nothing to fear until Derek feels a change in his bond. If nothing else, it’s still strong enough to sense her general body condition, if she’s alive, or well, _not_.”

“And do you feel anything different?” Stiles turned his gaze back onto the alpha, whose lungs worked furiously to keep the air circulating through his body.

The Alpha shook his head. “No, nothing.”

Peter’s hands clapped together in a quick snap and brought the attention back to himself. “Good, good, now that we know she’s fine, we can all stop looking like we’re the ones at Death’s door. If Deucalion had her, even if he was controlling her, we would’ve known by now. Clearly he’d the advantage with her; he doesn’t have much to lose in a preemptive strike.”

“So what? We can’t just take an attack like that? We have to find her!” Isaac shouted.

* * *

_And they did._

The salty tang of blood was heavy in his mouth. He ran his tongue over his teeth, testing for soreness in his gums. Grudgingly, he pushed the blankets away from his body, shivering in the cold. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wake himself up a bit more, but it really was too cold for this. And too early. The digital clock on his desk only read ten past three in the morning.

His rough heels scuffed the hardwood as he padded through the flat. One hand on the wall, he felt his way down the hall until he caught the metallic scent again.

Under the door a small puddle was already forming. When he bent down, the substance felt sticky against his fingertips, forming long trails when he spread his fingers apart. Tasting it was a total mistake. He recoiled so strongly he tripped over his own legs.

Blood.

And most of it was still fresh. Steam would have risen from it if he hadn’t had the sense to invest in a heater.

The door swung inwards and before he could get his feet back under him, Aisling, of all things, crashed into him. Her weight pinned him against the floor, and soon her lifeblood stained his shirt and glued the fabric to his skin.

“Jasper? Jasper!” he shouted at the limp figure still weighing him down.

She didn’t move at the sound of her name. When he adjusted her against his chest to look at her face, her eyes were as vacant as they’d been when he last fought her. He nudged her again, but the eyes remained unfocused.

“Peter!” he hollered over his shoulder.

He had to move quickly before whatever had driven her to his doorstep decided to act again. With Erica and Boyd gone, if Aisling turned rabid, he wouldn’t be able to stop her by himself.

Peter finally stumbled out of his room, the same one the pair had just vacated, but his unhurried footsteps soon quickened at the sight of Derek pinned against the floor. He dropped to his knees beside Derek, gently placing both hands against Aisling’s shoulders. So far so good, she hadn’t reacted to the touch though Peter stilled at the shudder that shook against his palms.

“Now be very, very quiet,” he whispered.

Derek rolled his eyes, but slid his body out to the side as smoothly as he could once Peter had lifted enough of her weight to allow it. The hook of his belt clasp caught on the knit loops of her sweater, and for a moment he was certain she would strike in that moment. A low rumble sounded through her chest, but she stayed motionless in Peter’s grasp.

“What is she doing here,” Peter asked once he lowered her back onto the floor. He kept his voice low until together they moved her into his room, barricading the door against the possibility of her escape.

“I smelled blood. Then I found her at the door.”

“It’s Deucalion, but what’s the point of making her mutilate herself? He could’ve had her break into the flat and kill us all. Why this?”

Derek shrugged and poured himself a glass of water.

“I’d better clean the floor before it gets into the wood.”

“Derek,” Peter crooned. “He has to be doing this to break you. He’s already fragmented your pack. This is just salt in the wound.”

“It’s not salt in the wound. It’s an annoyance. That’s it,” Derek growled, bending down to begin mopping up the blood with rag from under the sink. “See this? _Annoying_.”

Peter laughed. “She’ll be your mate soon enough. You still haven’t rejected her courtship, and she’s given no indication of rejecting it herself. She is stronger than you are, even without his influence. I can see a lot more cleaning in your future.”

The alpha groaned but didn’t dignify the statement with a response.

“She might cool off, but she might not. Shouldn’t you be with her, try to pull her out?”

“I’d prefer staying alive. You said it yourself; he doesn’t want her dead, not until we are. She’ll be fine.”

“He made her turn her forearms into ribbons. Somehow I doubt she’ll be as fine as you think she is.”

“She’s a werewolf, Peter. Healing is a non-issue. It wasn’t even an Alpha injury.”

“Somehow your lack of concern for your fiancée does not surprise me. Is this just because she’s so much stronger than you? Someday you’re going to have to understand that her strength does not take away from yours. That’s the beauty of mates. You’re stronger together than you are apart. You will, however, have to learn how to clean better than this.”

Peter pressed a fingertip to the floor panels and held up the digit to Derek for inspection. Pale, diluted drops of red clung to the minute folds of his fingerprint.

Honestly, he was doing his best. The blood refused to come out of the grooves.

“You know, it may be in your best interest to get him out of her head before long. Having him in there can’t be great for her mental health. It was bad enough having her human family meddling in there.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll let her go soon enough.”

“And if he’s waiting for it? Waiting for you to fight him? Are you going to leave him in there, leave her with _him_?”

“You said she was stronger than me. She’ll be fine.”

Derek rose to his feet, cautiously opened the door to test the hallway for more of the sharp smelling fluid, but the marking drawn on the wood caught him by surprise. The Alpha Triskelion, a corruption of his own triskelion emblazoned between his shoulder blades. She’d drawn it so long ago the tracks had already dripped halfway down the door.

Peter crept up behind him to peer over his shoulder.

“Do you still think she’s fine?”

“Don’t open the door until sunrise.”

The older man laughed. “Such confidence. I’ll inform Isaac of the … situation.”

And Derek really didn’t like the sound of that.

Yet he passed through the doorway to Peter’s room anyway.

She shouldn’t be there. It smelled too much of his uncle, and no one deserved that to be the first thing they realize when they come back into their own head. She remained limp in his arms as he transferred her into his own room.

He set her down on the bed, brushing her hair back away from her neck. She never even blinked when he dug his claws into the soft skin. The force in her mind felt stronger this time, though dormant in a way. Something about it lacked the animosity of his first venture in spite of the power lying in wait.

His entry was met with the deep red eyes, burning him to the core, threatening him with a future he didn’t dare to face. He could see Aisling howling beneath him, though her body lay still against the sheets. Everything would go back to her, the wolf that never knew.

Coming into the power Peter left her had been the biggest grievance in her short life, and all that came after had been out of her control. Whatever connection had existed before between her and Deucalion, the bite had only served to amplify it. Deucalion could manipulate her into doing anything he desired, and he didn’t even need to be in within the town border.

Before, around the time she drew the spirals onto the stone bridge, he’d been inside Beacon Hills. Deucalion showed himself, tucked away in a quaint vintage bookstore somewhere downtown, now replaced with a Starbucks, reading the synopsis on the back of a large hardcover, eyes gleaming scarlet behind the shades. The entire thing he’d orchestrated from a public place. He’d slipped past the pack defenses to leave the message Aisling would carry with her long after she left town. And now he could do it from afar.

The new message was clear. Aisling belonged to him, and they would never be able to find him.

When Derek curled back his lips into a snarl, his fury bled through his own intangible connection to her, and jumpstarted her slowly beating heart. Unaffected by any pain, her pulse had been a reliable, steady beat, but now he’d sent it racing. He could feel the thrum through his fingertips.

Too late he realized his mistake.

Deucalion withdrew his control that very instant, leaving Derek to deal with the exhausted girl in his bed.

“What’s going on,” she slurred.

He released his tenuous connection to her mind and wiped his claws on his shirt front.

“Sleep. Three more hours to sunrise.”

Moving over to the foot of the bed, he swiped a sweater up from the floor, pulled it on, and waited for the sound of even breathing, determined to keep away for at least that long. Being in the same room made it almost impossible.

Peter had it right. Things had only gotten worse since Aisling started to court him. It was strange being on this end of their relationship, but he supposed it shouldn’t be. This wasn’t medieval times. Women could make their own decisions, well, except for Aisling, but that was only a couple times with something else controlling her. When she gave him that bite, he couldn’t have gotten a better excuse to act on the plan his mother had left for them.

He couldn’t have found the energy to hate his mother for setting him up for marriage before he even reached puberty. He had nearly forgotten how good it felt to run with someone who could keep up. Of course, he’d grown accustomed to being the best since he’d made a pack of his own. Not one of them had the strength or skill to best him in physical contest, but having someone who could as easily as they breathed, that was a new feeling. One he’d have to become accustomed to, but he would enjoy the journey there.

Aisling had fought hard to stay awake, even going as far as scooting out from under the blankets, but no amount of cold was enough to make her body forget that she’d just had her mind compromised. In the time it had taken him to slide his arms into the sleeves of his sweater she’d only managed to crawl to the end of the bed, leaving her sprawled awkwardly across the covers, one arm outstretched towards him.

Derek returned her under the covers before sliding under only the first one himself. Better to keep an extra layer between them. Her warmth heated the air pocket under the blankets. This was much better than sleeping alone. No wonder Isaac always complained about there needing to be more pack bonding nights, ones that included pack dog piles. Soon enough Aisling would have to go home, but he missed her enough after the first time she stayed over, for more than just body warmth.

The pack had been through a great many stressors. Her company removed the bags from under his eyes and breathed life back into his aching muscles. Searching for Erica and Boyd night and day left little time to rest when it could mean the difference for their survival. Yet it was a necessary evil but a welcome retreat so long as he knew he could come back to this.

Her hair tickled his lips when he pressed them to the crown of her head. She stirred, shifting closer to him, and he didn’t flinch away from the intrusion.

* * *

Cold sheets, cool breeze, pillows on the floor, a wide open bedroom door.

These are the things that greeted Derek come morning.

He had known better than to expect her to stay, but he would have liked to know if it had been her choice or Deucalion’s. The thought of the former made the crescent on his shoulder ache unbearably.


	13. ETA

Phone calls in the middle of the night had long ago stopped being cause for annoyance. Instead they’d morphed into something of an electric shock, propelling the recipient to new heights of fear.

Derek wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say much over the phone, just brief, curt orders that ripped the pack away from their beds and sent them marching into the night.

They found her at the outskirts of town, half-expecting to find a glass bottle of sparkling cider in her hand. Lydia tutted, something about how sad it was that werewolves couldn’t get intoxicated and she couldn’t even be bother to buy anything stronger than cider. Aisling never struck her as the type to grab anything but something fruity.

They didn’t expect to find this though. It wasn’t sparkling cider running down her front.

After Erica and Boyd left, the news trickled down through the rest of the pack, eventually making its way down to the last person who needed to hear it.

Everyone just assumed she was distraught, that she blamed herself for their departure. It would have made perfect sense. The whole time Erica fought with her, she refused for the longest time to return the resentment, only ever acting in self-defense. No one would have spared her a second glance if she’d just needed some time to work through the guilt.

But this. This wasn’t guilt.

Coach Finstock threatened to have her fired instead of put on leave again if she didn’t snap out of it soon. She’d only just come back to work after her last disappearance.

Honestly Stiles considered themselves lucky for even going this long with her. According to Isaac, who heard it from Peter, Aisling showed up out of the blue at the loft with arms that had gone through the sink garbage disposal, and just as quickly she vanished the next morning. They would have started the search anew had she not been kind enough to leave a voicemail on the Stilinski home line that she would be in after lunch until lacrosse practice.

Isaac stepped in at that point, but Finstock wasn’t in the mood for her excuses. Not even Stiles’ babbling could rile him up enough to distract him from her.

She disappeared before anyone could follow her. Allison’s car remained in the parking lot, and by the time practice finished, she’d already crossed the river through the woods. Two members down, Derek refused to allow anyone into the trees alone, and that meant with at least one wolf, even for Allison. Unfortunately, that left the search party severely overwhelmed. Searching high and low for the cold trail of one painfully evasive, possibly mind-controlled Omega brought little news, and an hour before nightfall, Derek’s phone vibrated in his back pocket.

“What?” he grumbled, regaining his previous pace up and over the mess of fallen branches through his chosen route.

Stiles’s voice shouted from the other end, “Highway 29, leaving Beacon Hills. Drive, don’t run. My dad’s already there.”

“Stiles, Stiles, what happened,” Derek snapped, instantly halting mid step to turn the other way. He couldn’t get through the trees fast enough. Every branch seemed to bend his way and claw at his clothes, anything to hold him back.

His growls and the sound of claws hacking through the tough wood covered up the sound of Stiles’ response and he found himself having to ask the boy to repeat himself.

He could practically hear the kid running a hand through his hair. The whine in his voice just gave it away. “Look, Derek, I don’t want to alarm you, but this is bad. Like, seriously- _bad_ bad. She caused a car accident, well, not a car accident if you take into consideration that this was a truck, so more like a truck accident. Or, you know, a tree incident because it’s not like the truck left very many after it sort of crashed and burned. And oh my holy Jesus Christ, is that what I- oh my- sh- god dammi- no, oh, no, no, that cannot, that cannot be- what even- how did she-”

“Stiles, breathe. I’m almost to my car. Where are you?”

“With my dad. Well, not with him. More like hiding from him, but I can see them processing her. They already finished the photographs by the time I got here, but oh my god, I can’t, dude, I just can’t. You know, maybe you don’t need to see this.”

“What is it?” He pulled his keys from his pocket and shoved it into the slot on the first try, hopping in and turning the key in the ignition before he even had his seatbelt locked into position.

Stiles breathed in deep and shook his head against the phone, his hair scratching against the speaker. “I’m calling Isaac to meet me. You shouldn’t come. Forget I called you.”

“Too late.”

He pressed his foot against the accelerator. The roar of the engine failed to bring the usual smirk to his face. He didn’t need the speed to impress anyone, he just needed to get to his mate.

But surely nothing bad could’ve happened or he would have felt it through his bond to her. Stiles mentioned an accident with a truck, but he would have known if she’d been injured. Of course, that left the possibility that she’d injured someone else, and Derek just couldn’t be asked to deal with explaining that, not now, not with everything going on. Maybe it would be easier if Stiles could just tell his father already what kinds of creatures lived in Beacon Hills like Scott had explained, or rather admitted after exposure, to his mother that he was a werewolf and there were more like him. If the sheriff knew, he might be more inclined to look the other way or skew the evidence to remove the suspicion from Derek.

Thanks to Stiles, most mutilations in town automatically meant Derek would be brought in for questioning and then sent home once they realized he hadn’t been involved in the least. Thanks to the spiral Aisling had found in the vandalism reports now the interest in him would be rekindled. He crossed his fingers. Please, don’t let it be another spiral. That was the last thing Aisling needed.

Deucalion hadn’t even given it a day since she painted the Alpha triskelion onto his door.

Please, don’t let it be another one.

* * *

Caution tape fluttered in the wind, snapping against the trunks of neighboring trees and the hoods of the squad cars parked up against the bright yellow plastic. Being so far out of town, only a small crowd had gathered around, pressing up close in sparse groups circling the cars, the vast majority of them relatives or friends of the involved parties. All that meant was a ton of trucker buddies and a pair of grandmothers bundled in bathrobes so thick they could have doubled as blankets, or for a couple of the slightly younger women, it was the exact opposite. Off to the side of the road stood a bright powder blue jeep, tucked away behind a clump of firs, invisible from the crash side of the road.

The sheriff stood at the center of it all, bending down onto one knee to inspect the mark painted onto the asphalt.

Paramedics lifted the young woman responsible onto a gurney and rolled her into the relative warmth of the rear of the ambulance. He could only watch for so long as they slid the IV needle into her arm, something about restoring fluids to regain consciousness sooner, and then wrapped her in a pill-dotted grey heat blanket.

He’d been watching her so keenly the past few days, and she’d still managed to slip out. No, he couldn’t think of her in those terms, like a dog, she was a sweet girl by any standard and she deserved better than this. Someone would expect justice though and reparations. The taxpayers wouldn’t enjoy having to watch their taxes going to cleaning up this mess, but they’d learn to like it once the journalists published it in the papers and the reporters paraded it around on the evening news circuit.

He didn’t want to be the one dealing with the fall out, not for something like this, not for something this close to home.

But he had a duty as sheriff. Removing himself from the victim was expected of him.

But that didn’t make the mess in front of him any better.

Had he not known any better, he would have guessed the red liquid splattered across the blacktop was just spray paint, hell, even normal exterior house paint, but blood wouldn’t have made the jump to the front of his mind if not for the carcass lying in the center of the grotesque symbol, satanic maybe? He’d have to send in photos for analysis and definitely run it by the veterinarian. Ever since the deer first cropped up with a spiral etched onto its side, Dr. Deaton stopped being just your average animal doctor. The man knew more than he let on and had a way of speaking without telling the whole truth. For a man like the sheriff, that habit got on his nerves every time.

Ribs pointed skyward, heart allegedly consumed, the entire digestive tract decorated the closest trees on either side due north and south of the carcass like Christmas garlands. He didn’t want to consider the heart’s whereabouts, but the first officer on scene, Judy, it took more than fifteen minutes to get her to stop screaming enough to tell them what she’d seen. The blood drenching the front of Aisling’s lavender and cream lace sweater suggested things he didn’t want to even think about. The paramedics wiped the worst of it off her chin and neck once they were given the go ahead from the photographers, but the image refused to leave the backs of his eyelids.

In the next ambulance, the truck driver was being treated for shock and a concussion, but he was lucky to have avoided anything worse than that. The front of the massive vehicle wrapped itself around the thickest tree at the end of a line of several shattered stumps, the upper portions of the trees all lying haphazardly over each other in crossing angles, some of them even leaning over where Aisling had been found seated in the center of her demonic little circle.

According to him, she had her hands up by her mouth, just covered in blood, and she just growled at him, like some kind of monster. What was strange though was how he heard it. It wasn’t as if she had been loud enough to hear over the rumbling of the truck engine or the deafening screech of the brakes or the tires across the asphalt; he heard it as if she’d been in his head. The growling forced him to throw the truck into the gutter before he even thought about needing to avoid her. He tried to pull over before his head exploded. That he’d missed her was just an added bonus.

“How are we with her uncle?” he asked one of his junior officers.

“He’s on his way, sir, but he’s requested that she not be given any sedation.”

“I’ll let the paramedics know. Thanks, you get the rest of these people cleared out so we can get a crew in to clean this up.”

His heels crunched on the scattered glass shards as he made his way over to the ambulance where Aisling currently sat, looking for all intents and purposes, like she just ran a marathon. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, and her chest rose and fell entirely too quickly to be considered normal resting behavior. At her sides, her hands repeatedly formed fists, gathering up the fuzzy folds of the heat blanket as soon as they released them.

Warm golden eyes snapped to his once he shortened the distance between them to an arm’s length. The bulk of his jacket served to close the space between the doors, partially closed to keep out the worst of the wind.

“Feeling any better?” he asked. A hand rose up to pat her knee and quickly withdrew at the resulting shudder through her frail body.

Her curls fell flat against her shoulders when she shook her head. “I want to go home.”

“I know, I know, but you’ve got to wait until your uncle comes. The driver you forced off the road isn’t going to press charges, but you are going to have to be monitored from now on. This is purely for your safety, all right? You can understand that. You’re a smart girl.”

She whimpered quietly. “Monitored?”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve been out and found wandering, but this is the first time you’ve seriously endangered someone’s life. We can’t have it happen again, Ash.”

She brought the blanket in tighter around her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I don’t even remember coming out here.”

“That’s why you’ll be monitored. The court will settle the details with you over the next few days. Your parents may come down to sign the documents-“

She winced.

“- _but_ if they give your uncle custody privileges, that won’t be necessary. I’m sorry you have to be treated like this, but you’ve only been getting worse since you got back. I’m not hearing good things from Stiles about you and Finstock. I’m going to have to let you go, maybe not permanently, but for now. You just need to rest and get better. I’m just worried about you.”

She seemed to shrink in front of him, pulling herself into a ball as well as she could on the narrow gurney, but somehow she succeeded and shrugged off every attempt of his to comfort her.

“Should I call one of your friends? I’m pretty sure Stiles is already here if I know my own son. You’ve got a while before your uncle shows.”

Her head bobbed under the blanket, and his lips quirked upwards into a small smile. Finally he’d said something right, something to make up for the inherent indignity with having to monitor her in the future.

Stiles darted out from the tree line on the ridge above the crash site before he even bothered to hang up the phone and spare his dad the sound of his smashing his way through the trees with all the G-rated swearing that came with it. He just nodded meekly to his dad and slipped inside the ambulance with Aisling, shutting the door quietly behind him. Hopefully he could figure out how to open it up again when he needed out, but Aisling didn’t seem on the verge of lapsing into semi-unconsciousness for a second time today. Which was totally good with him.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

“For what?”

“Shutting the door. Surprisingly low cold tolerance over here.” She waved her wrist limply, sticking it out from under the blanket.

“You’re right. That is surprising. I thought all werewolves were natural human heaters.”

“I’ve never been able to tell the difference, brain-washing and all that, you know the story.”

Yeah. He did. He wish he didn’t, but he did.

“So, what’s going to happen from here?”

“I get a tracker. They don’t want me running loose anymore. Like a goddamned dog.”

“Well, wolves are still canines and the dog’s ancestor, so it’s not much of a stretch, right?”

“Not helping,” she grunted.

“Yeah, sorry.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, craning his neck around to get a good look at their cramped surroundings, keeping a close watch on her from the corner of his eye.

His dad was right. She did look like crap. It wasn’t her fault, but she still looked like crap. If she had the energy, he imagined she would be furious at the state of her sweater. It looked expensive and soft, incredibly soft; it probably came from the vast collection that Lydia made her buy that one time. Aisling didn’t strike him at the kind of person to gravitate toward lace in a clothing store. She was more soft solids and graphic tees, which tended to be a point on contention with Lydia’s concept of fashion, but that just made Stiles glad to be exempt as the group dork. He got to wear flannel and call it a day.

Either way, Deucalion deserved a good kick to the ‘nads for dragging her out to the edge of town dressed so nicely just to kill another stag. He had to have gotten to her early in the morning if the deer were still as rare as they’d been the last time they wandered through the woods. That just made his head ache thinking about it. It was bad enough having to wake up that early for classes; it had to be worse having to wake up for an early morning slaughter.

“Stop it. I can feel you thinking.”

“Really?”

“No, dumbass, but it’s too quiet in here. I’m already getting slapped with a tracking collar or something. I don’t need you treating me like a bomb. I’m not that bad that a little conversation is going to kill me … or, well, someone.”

Well, this was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. Making wolves angry didn’t rank high on his bucket list, and that list would definitely get cut short if he made this one angry.  So he dodged the bullet and grinned. “You’ll get an anklet actually.”

“At least I can cover it with jeans.”

“Wear shorts. Make it a fashion statement. I can get you sequins and rhinestones. I already have a hot glue gun.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Come on. You know I’m only the coolest kid on campus. Lydia wishes she could decorate anklets as tastefully as I could.”

She laughed, nudging her face through the grey fabric so he could see when she raised an eyebrow. “Tastefully? Really?”

“Just wait and see. I’ll make it the damn sexiest tracker the police force has ever seen. My dad won’t be able to pay attention once I’m through with it.”

She smiled at him, eyes half-shut, just before her mouth stretched wide with a yawn. She could get used to this again, this feeling of familiarity, if only she could just hold onto it for longer than a day. Rest refused to come easily to her anymore, half for fear of _this_ happening and half because she couldn’t ignore the sickness constantly welling up in the back of her throat whenever she tried. She didn’t want to be the one to admit it, but another night with Derek could do wonders for her. Only, she’d burned that bridge when she forced two of his pack members to leave.

Not only that, they probably got themselves killed trying to get away from her. She’d overheard from Isaac the goings on in the pack following their nighttime departure. Their trail could be followed fairly easily through the woods, snaking up and down the hills; they were tracking the demon alpha, trying to avoid crossing him on their own, but then it just went cold. Not a trace of them or anything else was found. Scott even went to Chris, something that Aisling hadn’t even known herself, to ask him for help tracking them, but no imprints, no indentations, no tracks of any kind had been left behind for him to follow.

They were worse than gone, and she’d forced them to leave.

Derek would have to be an idiot to welcome her back after that. A really big, stupid idiot.

She must have been quiet for a while because Stiles was suddenly in her face, poking at her shoulder through the thick heat blanket.

“What?” she asked, blinking her eyes slowly. Once he moved, they had to readjust to the brightness of the lights he’d covered up with his torso.

“Derek’s outside.”

If her heart rate suddenly picked up, Stiles’ human ears didn’t know it.

“I called him even before my dad let me see you. He’s been waiting this whole time for his turn. If you’ll have him.”

“ _If I’ll have him_?”

“He’s having a bit of a moment, wants to be sure you’re not feeling pressured. Can you blame him though? Not like you’ve had a wealth of choices in your life.”

She cocked her head to the side and found herself agreeing. “So he’s not mad at me?”

“Derek doesn’t blame you. Isaac doesn’t blame you. Peter doesn’t blame you. _No one_ blames you. We all just want you to feel safe enough to let us help. Should I tell him to come in?”

He held up the phone, Derek’s photo already up on the screen, just waiting to be tapped. She coughed back a laugh at the picture. How Stiles still had it set as his icon without having his phone destroyed, she could only guess was due to his distinct lack of use of the phone around the alpha.

“Yeah. You can call him.”


	14. Dirty Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirty mind? Clean it up with Orbit!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man sorry for being so slow in the updates, had a hell of a time finishing last quarter, and then this quarter was a mess of time management (full time student and full time work+internship) until now, because I got into a car accident and haven't been able to face driving yet. Healthy habits, I know.
> 
> But here it is and here we are. An update, finally.

Finding Erica and Boyd became something of a priority following Aisling’s little episode on the highway, but it still ranked one step below stopping another episode from happening in the first place. Only her uncle provided any resistance to the suggestion that she spend more time with the pack, but Allison had her knives out and ready to fight for her cousin’s safety, which was as heart-warming as it was terrifying. Or more so, if Aisling could be completely honest.

That’s how they came to be in the car together, Allison driving them up the narrow side street leading to the pack’s flat. It was Lydia’s fault they were even doing this, doing the unthinkable. Normally Aisling would have already bolted from the car before they reached the halfway point, but Lydia had to be some kind of freaking psychic for how quickly she could lock the doors from the passenger seat before Aisling could get a grip on the door handle. She could easily tear the door free of its hinges and make her escape, but Aisling grimaced at the thought of having to explain to Chris why Allison’s car was doorless.

According to Lydia though, Deucalion had to have something that fostered his connection with her, and this night was supposed to be devoted to finding out exactly what it was. Plus, since the last time Derek tried to get into her head and stay long enough to find Deucalion, he’d experienced so much pain in such a short time that Lydia refused to acknowledge the feat as evidence of progress. It was all one step forward and two steps back.

And wasn’t that just an encouraging notion. If they messed this up, or even if they succeeded, something so unprecedented was bound to have its own set of consequences. Aisling wasn’t ready for that, she was sure she wasn’t. In between the blanks in her memory, she had a small group of friends ready to catch her and pull her back. But there in the darkness, she was alone. Even if she couldn’t escape it completely, just being able to distinguish both spheres of memory from each other made the dark easier to bear.

Aisling dreaded having anyone in her head again, but even Peter’s vast knowledge of the unnatural had failed to turn up any new information. Peter proved no better at identifying the link than Aisling, and he was her sire. Had it been that easy, she could’ve stayed home and left it to her _mate_ to destroy the source. Her mate who also dreaded the possibility of having to enter her head again. Apparently the memory of the pain still stung him a bit. Served him right. She bit her lip, wincing when the car dipped into a pothole. Well, not really, because it wasn’t as if he’d asked for it or done anything to deserve it, but it was about time someone else knew what it was like to have Deucalion messing with you, Lydia’s experience with Peter notwithstanding.

That was a story that trumped even all of Aisling’s misadventures because at least she’d never suffered the indignity of being found completely naked in the middle of the woods or revived a “dead” werewolf. No, she’d just killed lots of forest animals and toyed with their insides. God, she was thankful for being so out of it she didn’t remember the feel of intestines sliding between her fingers. She shivered at the ghost sensation of slimy organs touching her skin. Her throat closed up momentarily before she choked back the urge to vomit. The things she thought about sometimes. Quiet car rides were never any good for the mind.

Either way, Lydia had endured a ton of crap for what she’d done under Peter’s influence, but she didn’t recall there ever being quite that much pain compared to what Derek described. She even told Aisling point blank that she’d definitely drawn the short stick on mind-controlling alphas. Peter never quite approached the level of ferocity of Deucalion in the things he’d asked of Lydia. There was also the bonus of being immune to the bite to be considered. While Aisling turned as a result of Peter’s bite, Lydia just turned into a conduit for him, no lupine side effects to speak of.

“Immune? I didn’t even know that could happen,” Aisling mused when she heard about it.

“Neither did Peter. Even Dr. Deaton was surprised, but let’s just say I’m not looking into testing the efficacy of my immunity. If I didn’t turn the first time, I am _not_ interested in trying a second. It’s bad enough I even know any of this exists in the first place. I had to do _so_ much damage control after being associated with Stiles it wasn’t even funny.”

That sounded more like the Lydia Aisling knew, at least the one she thought she knew. It was so hard to remember that she’d only met her recently. She was still an outsider by general society’s standards, but the mess she’d made since she met them must’ve had some way of bringing them closer faster, which was not a bad thing considering they’d just lost two pack members, most likely to the same Alpha interested in pitting her against both Hales.

A murderous agenda and an invisible puppet master spelled disaster for all, and Aisling loathed being the center of it.

She should’ve just stayed in fucking Bixby.

* * *

“If he’s actually giving you a rest period after your last midnight ride, it stands to reason that he needs a rest period as well. Maybe because he is controlling you from far enough away that it requires more energy.”

“Great, so drawing a larger perimeter around Beacon Hills for Aisling-all-access,” Stiles groaned.

He didn’t actually draw a circle on the map spread out on the floor in front of him, but he did trace an imaginary one with a finger. Small red Xs and stars dotted the colorful paper already, stars for the old days before the fire, and Xs for her more recent excursions. No pattern readily jumped out at them, even for Allison who Chris had trained to inspect maps as part of her hunter training. Back when they were kids, he used to tell them that map-reading was a key survival skill. If you couldn’t find your way, you were already dead.

Peter glowered at the teen but continued. “He won’t have enough energy to put up a significant resistance to protect you from intrusion by one of us.” _Namely me._

Now it was her turn to glower. She liked to think she did it better.

“The sooner we can sever the connection between you two, the sooner we can refocus our efforts on restoring the pack. Who knows, maybe saving them will get Erica to stop challenging you all the time. I just know I don’t miss the squabbling.”

“Insensitive much?” she grumbled, but thankfully no one commented on it.

They all got back to the matter at hand, finding some common ground between her and Deucalion. After intense deliberation, they’d all come to the conclusion that the only way they’d find anything was by entry into her head. Someone, notably _not_ Derek, would search back along the connection until they could cut her loose. It sounded awfully like a shot in the dark, too much for her to feel any degree of comfort letting any one of them into her head, even if Peter was clearly the only one left among the pack with any experience of success with the technique.

“I just need you to lie back.”

It never stopped there, did it? She hissed in a breath through her teeth but did as she was asked. Isaac had kindly pulled his heavy comforter from his bedroom to give her something warm to separate her from the cool hardwood. The belt loops of her jeans still dug into the small of her back, but the blanket was better than nothing.

Peter knelt behind her, the tops of his knees in line with the crown of her head on either side. God, such an awkward position. She had to shut her eyes to force the thought out of her mind. Better to not have that floating about where he could see it. The fucking perv.

“You’re going to feel a slight pinch.”

God, he didn’t have to sound like a nurse. She’d gone through enough doctors to not have a positive appreciation for them.

“Just shut up and-“

She never got a chance to finish her sentence. The bastard drove his claws deep into the skin of her neck and her vision flooded with a million shades of blue with the rare flash of sunset red. A brief reminder that he’d been an alpha himself? She would’ve shrugged if she’d had any conscious muscle control. Too much ease was flowing through her to bother with doing anything but lying there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so a very short update, I know. Hopefully I'll have another one out soon to make up for it. Fingers crossed!


	15. Cliches belong in Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About to enter the second round of midterms. Shoulder's still busted from the car accident, but it's getting better. :)

No one ever told her what he’d been looking for or if she should even try to help. Really, as calm as she felt, her heart began to pick up the more she thought about what she ought to be doing. Like a worm under her skin, she could feel him poking around in the nooks and crannies of her mind. It wasn’t wholly uncomfortable, more like a mild annoyance, like a fly you wanted to swat but couldn’t.

In hindsight she should’ve asked more questions. It wouldn’t have been stalling for the sake of stalling, not really. Though it would’ve helped to put it off for a while longer.

If Peter had only told her this was what she’d be facing, she would gladly have put it off at least a week. She could feel something not unlike waves crashing against her ears, flooding her mind with saltwater cooler than snowmelt.

Stars burst from the backs of her eyes, startling her from the relative peace (if it could even be called that) she’d enjoyed for the last few minutes. Her body lurched upwards before outside forces pressed her against the soft blanket beneath her. Her spine twisted and contorted in spite of external attempts to hold her steady while her own internal struggle proved equally fruitless. Several pairs of hands locked like manacles around her extremities, pretending they might have enough strength in the fragile digits to hold her down for long, let alone leave a bruise.

What the hell was Peter trying to accomplish?

_“It’s not me, sweetheart.”_

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Great. Because that was exactly the sequence of words she wanted to hear.

All in all though that was the last word of warning she received before the blue clouding her sight shifted in the next instant to a warring mixture of scarlet and aquamarine like drops of blood in a lake before the rest of the body dropped under the surface. Except the lake fought back.

_“A little help, Jasper?”_

How exactly was she supposed to do that? She’d never been conscious with Deucalion running amok in her head.

_She’d never been conscious before._

This was new. This she appreciated more than the blankness of total control.

Naturally she fought the only way she could, she searched him out. Derek hadn’t gotten far, but she knew herself better than he did, or at least that was the working theory. If she could just find Deucalion, maybe she could make it harder for him to control her again.

That’s how it worked with bats at least. Wait for them to leave and follow them to their exit point, block it and keep them from coming back. Work in the vet clinic long enough, you pick up a few things.

Also never try to handle a bat. The whole rabies deal was not a joke. And definitely don’t try to bring one to a vet clinic. Potential mass exposure was even less of a joke.

Images of her childhood popped up in the swirling mix of colors, flashes and bursts of memories lost to her, episodes from before. Cool water swished around her calves, drenching her past her knees. Golf balls rolled around her feet when she moved them around in the resisting fluid. The next moment, as if brought to life, the water dragged her down, entangling her in wet weed hands until darkness swallowed her, and, lord, did that not bode well.

Her own hands clawed up for the surface fading above her as the shadows closed in. She came out the other side with water still lapping at her ankles. A drop of something splashed on the tip of her nose, dots of red stinging her eyes. When she looked up, she had to turn her body around completely to take in the sight of the collection of spirals painted onto the stone bridge.

While she gaped at her misguided handiwork, the river rose around her legs until the current was strong enough to carry her under once more.

Furiously, she clawed and kicked at the passing riverbank until one hand closed around a tree root and the other punched through the dirt and found nothing. Absolutely nothing. Splashes of mud speckled her arms up to the shoulders the more she fought, the soft earth dripping from the points of her claws.

The current grew in strength, other roots coming in close to push her away from the banks, but she held fast, allowing the change to consume her form. Deucalion could try to drown her, but this was her mind and she would not allow herself to fall so easily. Taking the root into her jaws, she dug at the damp earth with both hands. As soon as she was able, she squeezed through the shrinking hole and dropped into a single spotlight in the darkness.

_How cliché_. And this was all in her own mind; Lydia would be so disappointed if she could see this. She expected more from herself, really. Here’s to hoping Peter couldn’t see this far inside. She crossed her fingers and brought them to her lips, more for her sake than his, before she took a tentative step forward.

The light followed her.

That had to be a good sign. No roots or watery channels popped up to take her back.

Another step. She raised her eyes to the source of the light, but it was too overpowering to see much of anything. After that bright move (ha) she had a moment of real blindness before she staggered in what she presumed was the right direction. Every other way she turned felt off somehow, like running into a wall or pulling against a bungee cord. Of course, that could mean she was walking into a trap. Deucalion didn’t strike her as the sort of guy who wouldn’t lull her into a false sense of security before he did some real damage.

She kissed her crossed fingers again. Here’s to hoping I’m not going to die.

The first couple of times the light blinked out, Aisling convinced herself she just didn’t realize she was blinking. But when the darkness grew longer and the light lasted less and less, she couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. Her heart rate picked up like a train headed downslope after the brakes have been cut.

A knot sprouted from the floor, the tough wood of a tree root bringing her down where four more caught her round her wrists and ankles, the first one looping over her neck to immobilize her against the looming threat. Even wolfed out, her claws fell just short of slashing herself free, and the roots only grew tighter. It was like a scene out of Harry Potter.

Beneath her, the floor shook like a scene out of Jurassic Park, and she really needed to cut back on the frequency of Movie Night.

Her little friend the Spotlight flickered on. A heavy forepaw crashed down mere inches from her right hand. Lights out.

The damp stink of blood fresh from a kill wafted over her forehead, toying with the loose strands that had already dried from her last dip in the water.

Lights on, a flash of white fangs close enough to drip spittle onto her face.

Lights off, and a scream wrenched from her throat in time to the wrenching of her insides from her body. Four long stripes of scarlet across her stomach, burgundy splatters on either side of her. The lights danced on and off more quickly after that, brief glimpses of a deformed monster cutting and slicing, and crunching and crushing through bone. Aisling screamed herself hoarse, just waiting to die. He tore her lungs from her chest, and she fought for every last breath, eyes blinking back tears. The salt burned into the wounds with new savagery, her own body increasing the agony.

Only after he ripped her heart and brought it to his mouth did the lights truly go out a final time.

* * *

Aisling carefully pushed herself up from the floor, inspecting her ankle for any sign of swelling. No real injury there, her shoulder took the worst impact in the fall. The damned darkness had played her for a fool.

What actually happened was much, much worse.

The spotlight followed her several more steps until she approached the end of her little stroll down memory lane, or whatever this was supposed to be. She had to pause for a moment. That looked like the worn edge of a well-used and well-trodden welcome mat. Another step, and she had to wrack her brain for where she’d last seen a mud-scraper hedgehog. By that point, the bright teal of the door and the gleaming gold of the doorknob reflected back the light overhead into her eye. After that point, no matter how she went around and around the free-standing door, the light never budged again.

Guess this means only one thing left to do.

Hand on the knob, breath caught in her throat, she pushed in.

And what a disappointment that was. All the movies she’d ever seen all painted entering your own head to be a grand adventure full of revelations and realizations of self. You literally got hit with a bag of bricks to really drive the point home.

But that was where movies divided themselves from the real world, she supposed. Nothing was ever that easy or symbolic.

All she found instead was a set of four plaster white walls around her. That’s not to say the door was still there. No, it decided it was much better not to distract from the other walls and made itself scarce, which was not something she looked forward to dealing with when she needed to get back out.

She walked the perimeter of the room, hands skimming across the surface of every wall, feeling for the slightest imperfection and finding none, until she crossed her starting point. Or thought she did. It was all very confusing without a reference point. The room lacked a ceiling, definitely, though that could be debated as well. The walls reached impossible heights, and maybe there was a ceiling up there, but she wouldn’t know it or be the one to test the theory of its existence. Bare walls meant no footholds.

In the middle of kicking her toes at the equally bare floors, some sort of sandy beige between ginger cookies and milk cream rather than stark white, the floor stopped being quite so bare.

The change took her by surprise so much that the force of her leg coming back down proved enough to trip over herself and fall on her face.

Freakishly, the pedestal that appeared in the center of the room had the mercy and foresight to bring itself to her. Unfortunately for Aisling, the damn chalky pillar pressed itself so close the crown of her head smacked right into the flowery crown of the pedestal. She whined so loud she feared she might wake herself up, and finding herself this close to her revelation, she couldn’t say she would have gone gladly from this walking freak show.

While one hand buried itself in her hair, rubbing at the tenderized skin, the other groped around the top of the pedestal for purchase until she could regain enough sense to balance herself.

Something clattered to the floor. A sharp crack filled her ears and appeared in the floor beneath her feet. Gingerly stepping over the deep crevices in the floor, she slipped around the pedestal to investigate the source of the first noise.

_No_.

Not this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffy because I'm a jerk but I still felt like I needed to post _something_.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've gotten this far, thank you.


End file.
